STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


Thomas  Edison 

Sir  Henry  Bessemer 

Robert   Fulton 

A  GROUP  OF  INVENTORS 


Alexander  Graham  Bell 
Hudson  Maxim 


/STORIES    OF 
USEFUL     INVENTIONS 


BY 

s.  E:'FORMAN 

AUTHOR  OF  "  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,1 
"  ADVANCED  CIVICS,"  ETC. 


NEW    YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
.THE  CKNTUKY  Co. 


Published  Stptcmber,   1911 


PREFACE 

IN  this  little  book  I  have  given  the  history  of  those 
inventions  which  are  most  useful  to  man  in  his 
daily  life.  I  have  told  the  story  of  the  Match, 
the  Stove,  the  Lamp,  the  Forge,  the  Steam-Engine,  the 
Plow,  the  Reaper,  the  Mill,  the  Loom,  the  House,  the 
Carriage,  the  Boat,  the  Clock,  the  Book,  and  the  Mes- 
sage. From  the  history  of  these  inventions  we  learn 
how  man  became  the  master  of  the  world  of  nature 
around  him,  how  he  brought  fire  and  air  and  earth 
and  water  under  his  control  and  compelled  them  to 
do  his  will  and  his  work.  When  we  trace  the  growth 
of  these  inventions  we  at  the  same  time  trace  the 
course  of  human  progress.  These  stories,  therefore, 
are  stories  of  human  progress;  they  are  chapters  in 
the  history  of  civilization. 

And  they  are  chapters  which  have  not  hitherto 
been  brought  together  in  one  book.  Monographs  on 
most  of  the  subjects  included  in  this  book  have  ap- 
peared, and  excellent  books  about  modern  inventions 
have  been  written,  but  as  far  as  I  know,  this  is  the 
v 


PREFACE 

first  time  the   evolution   of  these   useful   inventions 
has  been  fully  traced  in  a  single  volume. 

While  preparing  the  stories  I  have  received  many 
courtesies  from  officers  in  the  Library  of  Congress 
and  from  those  of  the  National  Museum. 

S.  E.  F. 
May,  1911. 

Washington,  D.  C. 


VI 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  FOREWORD ix 

I    THE  MATCH  .     .           ...          3 

II   THE  STOVE 13 

III  THE  LAMP 28 

IV  THE  FORGE 38 

V   THE  STEAM-ENGINE 54 

VI  THE  PLOW 73 

VII  THE  REAPER 85 

VIII  THE  MILL 97 

IX  THE  LOOM log 

X  THE  HOUSE 123 

XI  THE  CARRIAGE 144 

XII  THE  CARRIAGE  (Continued) 156 

XIII  THE  BOAT 166 

XIV  THE  CLOCK .187 

XV  THE  BOOK 203 

XVI   THE  MESSAGE  ,     .     : 222 


Vll 


A  FOREWORD1 

THESE  stories  of  useful  inventions  are  chapters 
in  the  history  of  civilization  and  this  little  book 
is  a  book  of  history.  Now  we  are  told  by  Herodotus, 
one  of  the  oldest  and  greatest  of  historians,  that  when 
the  writer  of  history  records  an  event  he  should  state 
the  time  and  the  place  of  its  happening.  In  some 
kinds  of  history  —  in  the  history  of  the  world's  wars, 
for  example,  or  in  the  history  of  its  politics  —  this 
is  strictly  true.  When  we  are  reading  of  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill  we  should  be  told  precisely  when 
and  where  the  battle  was  fought,  and  in  an  account 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  time  and 
place  of  the  declaration  should  be  given.  But  in  the 
history  of  inventions  we  cannot  always  be  precise  as 
to  dates  and  places.  Of  course  it  cannot  be  told 
when  the  first  plow  or  the  first  loom  or  the  first  clock 
was  made.  Inventions  like  these  had  their  origin 
far  back  in  the  earliest  ages  when  there  was  no  such 

1  Where  readers  are  quite  young  the  Foreword  had  better  be 
postponed  until  the  stories  themselves  are  read. 

ix 


A  FOREWORD 

person  as  a  historian.  And  when  we  come  to  the 
history  of  inventions  in  more  recent  times  the  his- 
torian is  still  sometimes  unable  to  discover  the  pre- 
cise time  and  place  of  an  invention. 

It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that  the  origin  of 
an  invention  should  be  surrounded  by  uncertainty  and 
doubt.  An  invention,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  is 
nearly  always  a  response  to  a  certain  want.  The 
world  wants  something  and  it  promises  a  rich  reward 
to  one  who  will  furnish  the  desired  thing.  The  in- 
ventor, recognizing  the  want,  sets  to  work  to  make 
the  thing,  but  he  conducts  his  experiments  in  secret, 
for  the  reason  that  he  does  not  want  another  to  steal 
his  ideas  and  get  ahead  of  him.  We  can  see  that  this 
is  true  in  respect  to  the  flying  machine.  The  first  ex- 
periments with  the  flying  machine  were  conducted  in 
secret  in  out  of  the  way  places  and  pains  were  taken 
that  the  public  should  know  as  little  as  possible  about 
the  new  machine  and  about  the  results  of  the  experi- 
ments. The  history  of  the  flying  machine  will  of 
course  have  to  be  written,  but  because  of  the  secrecy 
and  mystery  which  surrounded  the  beginnings  of  the 
invention  it  will  be  extremely  difficult  for  the  future 
historian  to  tell  precisely  when  the  first  flying  ma- 
chine was  invented  or  to  name  the  inventor.  If  it  is 
so  difficult  to  get  the  facts  as  to  the  origin  of  an  in- 
x 


A  FOREWORD 

vention  in  our  own  time,  how  much  more  difficult  it  is 
to  clear  away  the  mystery  and  doubt  which  surround 
the  beginnings  of  an  invention  in  an  age  long  past! 

In  a  history  of  inventions,  then,  the  historian  can- 
not be  precise  in  respect  to  dates  and  places.  For- 
tunately this  is  not  a  cause  for  deep  regret.  It  is 
not  a  great  loss  to  truth  that  we  cannot  know  pre- 
cisely when  the  first  book  was  printed,  nor  does  it 
make  much  difference  whether  that  book  was  printed 
in  Holland  or  in  Germany.  In  giving  an  account  of 
an  invention  we  may  be  content  to  treat  the  matter 
of  time  and  place  broadly,  for  the  story  is  apt  to 
carry  us  through  a  stretch  of  years  that  defies  com- 
putation, a  stretch  that  is  immensely  longer  than  the 
life  of  any  nation.  For  our  purpose  these  millen- 
niums, these  long  stretches  of  time,  may  be  thought 
of  as  being  divided  into  three  great  periods,  namely: 
the  primitive,  the  ancient,  and  the  modern  period. 
Even  a  division  so  broad  as  this  is  not  satisfactory, 
for  in  the  progress  of  their  inventions  all  countries 
have  not  kept  equal  step  with  the  march  of  time.  In 
some  things  ancient  Greece  was  modern,  while  in  most 
things  modern  Alaska  is  primitive  and  modern  China 
is  ancient.  Nevertheless  it  will  be  convenient  at 
times  in  this  book  to  speak  of  the  primitive,  the  an- 
cient and  the  modern  periods,  and  it  will  be  useful  to 
xi 


A  FOREWORD 

regard  the  primitive  period  as  beginning  with  the 
coming  of  man  on  earth  and  extending  to  the  year 
5000  B.  C;  the  ancient  period  may  be  thought  of  as 
beginning  with  the  year  5000  B.  C.  and  ending  with 
the  year  476  A.  D.,  leaving  for  the  modern  period 
the  years  that  have  passed  since  476  A.  D. 

In  tracing  the  growth  of  an  invention  the  peri- 
ods indicated  above  can  serve  as  a  time-guide  only 
for  those  parts  of  the  world  where  the  course  of  civ- 
ilization has  taken  its  way,  for  invention  and  civiliza- 
tion have  traveled  the  same  road.  The  region  of 
the  world's  most  advanced  civilization  includes  the 
lands  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  Central 
and  Northern  Europe,  the  British  Isles,  North  Amer- 
ica, South  America  and  Australia.  It  is  within  this 
region  that  we  shall  follow  the  development  of  what- 
ever invention  is  under  consideration.  When  speak- 
ing of  the  first  forms  of  an  invention,  however,  it 
will  sometimes  be  necessary,  when  an  illustration  is 
desired,  to  draw  upon  the  experience  of  people  who 
are  outside  of  the  wall  of  civilization.  The  reason 
for  going  outside  is  plain.  The  first  and  simplest 
forms  of  the  useful  inventions  have  utterly  perished  in 
civilized  countries,  but  they  still  exist  among  savage 
and  barbarous  peoples  and  it  is  among  such  peoples 
that  the  first  forms  must  be  studied.  Thus  in  the 
xii 


A  FOREWORD 

story  of  the  clock,  we  must  go  to  a  far-off  peninsula 
of  Southern  Asia  (p.  190)  for  an  illustration  of  the 
beginning  of  our  modern  time-piece.  Such  a  depar- 
ture from  the  beaten  track  of  civilization  does  not 
spoil  the  story,  for  as  a  rule,  the  rude  forms  of  inven- 
tions found  among  the  lowest  races  of  to-day  are 
precisely  the  same  forms  that  were  in  use  among  the 
Egyptians  and  Greeks  when  they  were  in  their  lowest 
state. 

When  studying  the  history  of  an  invention  there 
are  two  facts  or  principles  which  should  ever  be  borne 
in  mind.  The  first  principle  is  this:  Necessity  is 
the  mother  of  invention.  This  principle  was  touched 
upon  when  it  was  said  that  an  invention  appears  as  a 
response  to  a  want.  When  the  world  wants  an  in- 
vention it  usually  gets  it  and  makes  the  most  of  it, 
but  it  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  an  invention  it 
does  not  want.  The  steam-engine  was  invented  two 
thousand  years  ago  (p.  55)  but  the  world  then  had 
no  work  for  steam  to  do,  so  the  invention  attracted 
little  attention  and  came  to  naught.  About  two  hun- 
dred years  ago,  however,  man  did  want  the  services 
of  steam  and  inventors  were  not  long  in  supplying  the 
engine  that  was  needed.  About  a  hundred  years  ago 
the  broad  prairie  lands  of  the  United  States  began  to 
be  tilled  but  it  was  soon  found  that  the  vast  areas 
xiii 


A  FOREWORD 

could  not  be  plowed  and  that  the  immense  crops  could 
not  be  harvested  by  the  old  methods.  So  improve- 
ments upon  the  plow  and  the  reaper  began  to  be  made 
and  in  time  the  steam  gang-plow  and  the  complete 
harvester  were  invented.  When  the  locomotive  first 
came  into  use  a  simple  handbrake  was  used  to  stop  the 
slow-going  trains,  but  as  the  size  and  the  speed  of 
trains  increased  the  handbrake  became  more  and  more 
unsatisfactory.  Sometimes  a  train  would  run  as  much 
as  a  half  mile  beyond  a  station  before  it  could  be 
stopped  and  then  when  "  backed  "  it  would  again 
pass  beyond  the  station.  The  problem  of  stopping 
the  train  promptly  became  fully  as  important  as  start- 
ing it.  The  problem  was  solved  by  the  invention  of 
the  air-brake.  And  thus  it  has  been  with  all  the  in- 
ventions which  surround  us:  necessity  has  been  the 
mother  of  them  all. 

The  other  principle  is  that  a  mechanical  inven- 
tion is  a  growth,  or,  to  state  the  truth  in  another 
way,  an  invention  nearly  always  is  simply  an  im- 
provement upon  a  previous  invention.  The  loom, 
for  example,  was  not  invented  by  a  particular  person 
at  a  particular  time;  it  did  not  spring  into  existence 
in  a  day  with  all  its  parts  perfected;  it  grew,  century 
by  century,  piece  by  piece.  In  the  stories  which  will 
follow  the  steps  in  the  growth  of  an  invention  are 
xiv 


A  FOREWORD 

shown  in  the  illustrations.  These  pictures  are  not 
for  amusement  but  for  study.  As  you  read,  examine 
them  carefully  and  they  will  teach  you  quite  as  much 
about  the  growth  of  the  invention  as  you  can  be  taught 
by  words. 


xv 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


STORIES  OF   USEFUL 
INVENTIONS 


THE  MATCH 

DID  you  ever  think  how  great  and  how  many 
are  the  blessings  of  fire?  Try  to  think  of  a 
world  without  fire.  Suppose  we  should  wake  up 
some  bitter  cold  morning  and  find  that  all  the  fires 
in  the  world  were  out,  and  that  there  was  no  way 
of  rekindling  them;  that  the  art  of  kindling  a  fire 
had  been  lost.  In  such  a  plight  we  should  all  soon 
be  shivering  with  the  cold,  for  our  stoves  and  fur- 
naces could  give  us  no  warmth ;  we  should  all  soon 
be  hungry,  for  we  could  not  cook  our  food;  we 
should  all  soon  be  idle,  for  engines  could  not  draw 
trains,  wheels  of  factories  could  not  turn,  and  trade 
and  commerce  would  come  to  a  standstill;  at  night 
we  would  grope  in  darkness,  for  we  could  use  neither 
lamp  nor  gas  nor  electric  light.  It  is  easy  to  see 
that  without  fire,  whether  for  light  or  heat,  the  life 
of  man  would  be  most  wretched. 

There  never  was  a  time  when  the  world  was  with- 
out fire,  but  there  was  a  time  when  men  did  not 
3 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

know  how  to  kindle  fire;  and  after  they  learned  how 
to  kindle  one,  it  was  a  long,  long  time  before  they 
learned  how  to  kindle  one  easily.  In  these  days  we 
can  kindle  a  fire  without  any  trouble,  because  we  can 
easily  get  a  match;  but  we  must  remember  that  the 
match  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in  the 
world,  and  that  it  took  men  thousands  of  years  to 
learn  how  to  make  one.  Let  us  learn  the  history  of 
this  familiar  little  object,  the  match. 

Fire  was  first  given  to  man  by  nature  itself. 
When  a  forest  is  set  on  fire  by  cinders  from  a  neigh- 
boring volcano,  or  when  a  tree  is  set  ablaze  by  a 
thunderbolt,  we  may  say  that  nature  strikes  a  match. 
In  the  early  history  of  the  world,  nature  had  to 
kindle  all  the  fires,  for  man  by  his  own  effort  was 
unable  to  produce  a  spark.  The  first  method,  then, 
of  getting  fire  for  use  was  to  light  sticks  of  wood  at 
a  flame  kindled  by  nature  —  by  a  volcano,  perhaps, 
or  by  a  stroke  of  lightning.  These  firebrands  (Fig. 
i )  were  carried  to  the  home  and  used  in  kindling 
the  fires  there.  The  fire  secured  in  this  way  was 
carefully  guarded  and  was  kept  burning  as  long  as 
possible.  But  the  flame,  however  faithfully  watched, 
would  sometimes  be  extinguished.  A  sudden  gust 
of  wind  or  a  sudden  shower  would  put  it  out.  Then 
a  new  firebrand  would  have  to  be  secured,  and  this 
often  meant  a  long  journey  and  a  deal  of  trouble. 

In  the  course  of  time  a  man  somewhere  in  the 
world  hit  upon  a  plan  of  kindling  a  fire  without  hav- 
ing any  fire  to  begin  with;  that  is  to  say,  he  hit  upon 
4 


THE  MATCH 


FIG.    1. —  GETTING   A    MATCH    FROM    NATURE. 

a  plan  of  producing  a  fire  by  artificial  means.  He 
knew  that  by  rubbing  his  hands  together  very  hard 
and  very  fast  he  could  make  them  very  warm.  By 
trial  he  learned  that  by  rubbing  two  pieces  of  dry 
wood  together  he  could  make  them  very  warm. 
Then  he  asked  himself  the  question:  Can  a  fire  be 
kindled  by  rubbing  two  pieces 
of  wood  together,  if  they  are 
rubbed  hard  enough?  He 
placed  upon  the  ground  a  piece 
of  perfectly  dry  wood  (Fig.  2) 
and  rubbed  this  with  the  end  of 
a  stick  until  a  groove  was 
made.  In  the  groove  a  fine 
dust  of  wood  —  a  kind  of  saw- 
dust—  was  made  by  the  rub- 
bing. He  went  on  rubbing 

5 


FIG.  2. —  PRIMITIVE  FIRE- 
MAKING.  THE  STICK- 
AND-GROOVE  METHOD. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

hard  and  fast,  and,  behold,  the  dust  in  the  groove 
began  to  glow!  He  placed  some  dry  grass  upon 
the  embers  and  blew  upon  them  with  his  breath, 
and  the  grass  burst  into  a  flame.1  Here  for  the 
first  time  a  man  kindled  a  fire  for  himself.  He 
had  invented  the  match,  the  greatest  invention,  per- 
haps, in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  stick-and-groove  method  —  as  we  may  call  it 
—  of  getting  a  flame  was  much  better  than  guard- 
ing fire  and  carrying  it  from  place  to  place;  yet  it 
was,  nevertheless,  a  very  clumsy  method.  The  wood 
used  had  to  be  perfectly  dry,  and  the  rubbing  re- 
quired a  vast  amount  of  work  and  patience.  Some- 
i  times  it  would  take  hours  to 
produce  the  spark.  After  a 
while  —  and  doubtless  it  was  a 
very  long  while  —  it  was  found 
that  it  was  better  to  keep  the 
end  of  the  stick  in  one  spot  and 
twirl  it  (Fig.  3)  than  it  was  to 

plow  to  and  fro  with  it.     The 

FIG.  3.- THE  FIRE  DRILL.     twirling  motion  made  a  hole  in 

(Simple  Form.)          which  the  heat  produced  by  the 

friction  was  confined  in  a  small 

space.     At  first  the  drilling  was  done  by  twirling  the 

stick  between  the  palms  of  the  hands,  but  this  made 

1  Mr.  Walter  Hough  of  the  National  Museum,  himself  a  wizard 
m  the  art  of  fire-making,  tells  me  that  a  blaze  cannot  be  pro- 
duced simp  y  by  rubbing  sticks  together.  All  that  can  be  done 
by  rubbing  is  to  make  them  glow 


THE  MATCH 

the  hands  too  hot  for  comfort,  and  the  fire-makers 
learned  to  do  the  twirling  with  a  cord  or  thong  l 
wrapped  around  the  stick   (Fig.  4).     You  see,  the 
upper  end  of  the  stick  which 
serves  as  a  drill  turns  in  a  cav- 
ity in  a  mouthpiece  which  the 
operator    holds    between    his 
teeth.     If  you  should  under- 
take to  use  a  fire-drill  of  this 
kind,  it  is  likely  that  your  jaws 
would  be  painfully  jarred. 

By   both    the   methods    de-         F'G-  4-- FIRE  DRILL 

./    ,     ,  ,       c  ,  (Improved  Form.) 

scribed  above,  the  fire  was  ob- 
tained by  rubbing  or  friction.     The  friction  method 
seems  to  have  been  used  by  all  primitive  peoples, 
and  it  is  still  in  use  among  savages  in  various  parts 

t    of  the  world. 

The  second  step  in  fire-making 
was  taken  when  it  was  discovered 
that  a  spark  can  be  made  by  strik- 
ing together  a  stone  and  a  piece  of 
.    Y'     'ron   ore-     Strike   a  piece  of  flint 
against  a  piece  of  iron  ore  known 
as  pyrites,  or  fire-stone,  and  you  will 
make  sparks  fly.      (Fig  5.)      Let 
these  sparks  fall  into  small  pieces 
of  dried  moss  or  powdered  char- 
coal, and  the  tinder,  as  the  moss  or  the  charcoal  is 
called,  will  catch  fire.      It  will  glow,  but  it  will  not 
1  A  narrow  strip  of  leather. 

7 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

blaze.  Now  hold  a  dry  splinter  in  the  glowing  tin- 
der, and  fan  or  blow  with  the  breath  and  the  splinter 
will  burst  into  a  flame.  If  you  will  tip  your  splinter 
with  sulphur  before  you  place  it  in  the  burning  tin- 
der, you  will  get  a  flame  at  once.  This  was  the 
strike-a-light,  or  percussion,  method  of  making  a  fire. 
It  followed  the  friction  method,  and  was  a  great  im- 
provement upon  it  because  it  took  less  work  and  a 
shorter  time  to  get  a  blaze.  The  regular  outfit  for 


FIG.  6. —  TINDER  BOX,   FLINT,   STEEL,   AND   SULl'HUK- 
TIPPED   SPLINTERS. 

fire-making  with  the  strike-a-light  consisted  of  a  tin- 
der-box, a  piece  of  steel,  a  piece  of  flint,  and  some 
splinters  tipped  with  sulphur  (Fig.  6).  The  flint 
and  steel  were  struck  together,'  and  the  sparks  thus 
made  fell  into  the  tinder  and  made  it  glow.  A  splin- 
ter was  applied  as  quickly  as  possible  to  the  tinder, 
and  when  a  flame  was  produced  the  candle  which 
rested  in  the  socket  on  the  tinder-box  was  lighted. 
As  soon  as  the  splinter  was  lighted  the  cover  was  re- 


THE  MATCH 

placed  on  the  tinder-box,  so  as  to  smother  the  glow- 
ing tinder  and  save  it  for  another  time. 

The  strike-a-light  method  was  discovered  many 
thousands  of  years  ago,  and  it  has  been  used  by 
nearly  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world.1  And 
it  has  not  been  so  very  long  since  this  method  was 
laid  aside.  There  are  many  people  now  living  who 
remember  when  the  flint  and  steel  and  tinder-box 
were  in  use  in  almost  every  household. 

About  three  hundred  years  ago  a  third  method 
of  producing  fire  was  discovered.  If  you  should  drop 
a  small  quantity  of  sulphuric  acid  into  a  mixture  of 
chlorate  of  potash  and  sugar,  you  would  produce  a 
bright  flame.  Here  was  a  hint  for  a  new  way  of 
making  a  fire;  and  a  thoughtful  man  in  Vienna,  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  profited  by  the  hint.  He 
took  one  of  the  sulphur-tipped  splinters  which  he 
was  accustomed  to  use  with  his  tinder-box,  and 
dipped  it  into  sulphuric  acid,  and  then  applied  it  to 
a  mixture  of  chlorate  of  potash  and  sugar.  The 
splinter  caught  fire  and  burned  with  a  blaze.  Here 
was  neither  friction  nor  percussion.  The  chemical 
substances  were  simply  brought  together,  and  they 
caught  fire  of  themselves;  that  is  to  say,  they  caught 
fire  by  chemical  action. 

The  discovery  made  by  the  Vienna  man  led  to  a 

1  The  ancient  Greeks  used  a  burning-glass  or  -lens  for  kindling 
fire.  The  lens  focused  the  sun's  rays  upon  a  substance  that 
would  burn  easily  and  set  it  afire.  The  burning-glass  was  not 
connected  in  any  way  with  the  development  of  the  match. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

new  kind  of  match  —  the  chemical  match.  A  prac- 
tical outfit  for  fire-making  now  consisted  of  a  bottle 
of  sulphuric  acid  (vitriol)  and  a  bundle  of  splints 
tipped  with  sulphur,  chlorate  of  potash,  and  sugar. 
Matches  of  this  kind  were  very  expensive,  costing  as 
much  as  five  dollars  a  hundred;  besides,  they  were 
very  unsatisfactory.  Often  when  the  match  was 
dipped  into  the  acid  it  would  not  catch  fire,  but  would 
smolder  and  sputter  and  throw  the  acid  about  and 
spoil  both  the  clothes  and  the  temper.  These  dip- 
splint  matches  were  used  in  the  eighteenth  century  by 
those  who  liked  them  and  could  afford  to  buy  them. 
They  did  not,  however,  drive  out  the  old  strike-a-light 
and  tinder-box. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  —  the  century  in  which 
so  many  wonderful  things  were  done  —  the  fourth 
step  in  the  development  of  the  match  was  taken.  In 
1827,  John  Walker,  a  druggist  in  a  small  English 
town,  tipped  a  splint  with  sulphur,  chlorate  of  potash, 
and  sulphid  of  antimony,  and  rubbed  it  on  sand- 
paper, and  it  burst  into  flame.  The  druggist  had 
discovered  the  first  friction-chemical  match,  the  kind 
we  use  to-day.  It  is  called  friction-chemical  because 
it  is  made  by  mixing  certain  chemicals  together  and 
rubbing  them.  Although  Walker's  match  did  not 
require  the  bottle  of  acid,  nevertheless  it  was  not  a 
good  one.  It  could  be  lighted  only  by  hard  rub- 
bing, and  it  sputtered  and  threw  fire  in  all  direc- 
tions. In  a  few  years,  however,  phosphorus  was 
substituted  on  the  tip  for  antimony,  and  the  change 
10 


THE  MATCH 


worked  wonders.  The  match  could  now  be  lighted 
with  very  little  rubbing,  and  it  was  no  longer  neces- 
sary to  have  sandpaper  upon  which  to  rub  it.  It 
would  ignite  when  rubbed  on  any  dry  surface,  and 
there  was  no  longer  any  sputtering.  This  was  the 
phosphorus  match,  the  match  with  which  we  are  so 
familiar. 

After  the  invention  of  the  easily-lighted  phos- 
phorus match  there  was  no  longer  use  for  the  dip- 
splint  or  the  strike-a-light. 
The  old  methods  of  getting  a 
blaze  were  gradually  laid 
aside  and  forgotten.  The 
first  phosphorus  matches  were 
sold  at  twenty-five  cents  a 
block  —  a  block  (Fig.  7) 
containing  a  hundred  and 
forty-four  matches.  They 
were  used  by  few.  Now  a 
hundred  matches  can  be 
bought  for  a  cent.  It  is  said 
that  in  the  United  States  we  use  about  150,000,000,- 
ooo  matches  a  year.  This,  on  an  average,  is  about 
five  matches  a  day  for  each  person. 

There  is  one  thing  against  the  phosphorus  match : 
it  ignites  too  easily.  If  one  is  left  on  the  floor, 
it  may  be  ignited  by  stepping  upon  it,  or  by 
something  falling  upon  it.  We  may  step  on  a  phos- 
phorus match  unawares,  light  it,  leave  it  burn- 
ing, and  thus  set  the  house  on  fire.  Mice  often 
II 


7. —  A     "  BLOCK 
MATCHES. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

have  caused  fires  by  gnawing  the  phosphorus  matches 

and  igniting  them.     In   one   city   thirty   destructive 

fires  were  caused  in  one  year  by  mice  lighting  matches. 

To  avoid  accident  by  matches,  the  safety  match 

(Fig.  8)  has  re- 
cently been  invented. 
The  safety  match 
does  not  contain 
phosphorus.  The 

FIG.  8. —  A  BOX  OF  MODERN   SAFETY  phoSphorUS   is   mixed 

MATCHES.  •    L      r  j 

with  fine  sand  and 

glued  to  the  side  of  the  box  in  which  the  matches  are 
sold.  The  safety  match,  therefore,  cannot  be  lighted 
unless  it  is  rubbed  on  the  phosphorus  on  the  outside 
of  the  box.  It  is  so  much  better  than  the  old  kind  of 
phosphorus  match  that  it  is  driving  the  latter  out  of 
the  market.  Indeed,  in  some  places  it  is  forbidden 
by  law  to  sell  any  kind  of  match  but  the  safety  match. 

The  invention  of  the  safety  match  is  the  last  step 
in  the  long  history  of  fire-making.  The  first  match 
was  lighted  by  rubbing,  and  the  match  of  our  own 
time  is  lighted  by  rubbing;  yet  what  a  difference  there 
is  between  the  two!  With  the  plowing-stick  or  fire- 
drill  it  took  strength  and  time  and  skill  to  get  a 
blaze;  with  the  safety  match  an  awkward  little  child 
can  kindle  a  fire  in  a  second. 

And  how  long  it  has  taken  to  make  the  match  as 
good  as  it  is  I  The  steam-engine,  the  telegraph, 
the  telephone,  and  the  electric  light  were  all  in  use 
before  the  simple  little  safety  match. 

12 


THE  STOVE 

FROM  the  story  of  the  match  you  have  learned 
how  man  through  long  ages  of  experience 
gradually  mastered  the  art  of  making  a  fire  easily 
and  quickly.  In  this  chapter,  and  in  several  which 
are  to  follow,  we  shall  have  the  history  of  those  in- 
ventions which  have  enabled  man  to  make  the  best 
use  of  fire.  Since  the  first  and  greatest  use  of  fire 
is  to  cook  food  and  keep  the  body  warm,  our  account 
of  the  inventions  connected  with  the  use  of  fire  may 
best  begin  with  the  story  of  the  stove. 

The  most  important  uses  of  fire  were  taught  by 
fire  itself.  As  the  primitive  man  stood  near  the 
flames  of  the  burning  tree  and  felt  their  pleasant 
glow,  he  learned  that  fire  may  add  to  bodily  com- 
fort; and  when  the  flames  swept  through  a  forest 
and  overtook  a  deer  and  baked  it,  he  learned  that 
fire  might  be  used  to  improve  the  quality  of  his  food. 
The  hint  was  not  lost.  He  took  a  burning  torch 
to  his  cave  or  hut  and  kindled  a  fire  on  his  floor 
of  earth.  His  dwelling  filled  with  smoke,  but  he 
could  endure  the  discomfort  for  the  sake  of  the 
fire's  warmth,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  toothsomeness 
of  the  cooked  meats.  After  a  time  a  hole  was  made 
in  the  roof  of  the  hut,  and  through  this  hole  the 
13 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

smoke  passed  out.  Here  was  the  first  stove.  The 
primitive  stove  was  the  entire  house;  the  floor  \v.is 
the  fireplace  and  the  hole  in  the  roof  was  the 
chimney  (Fig.  i).  The  word  "stove"  or 


FIG.    I.— THE    PRIMITIVE    STOVE. 


meant  "  a  heated  room."  So  that  if  we  should  say 
that  at  first  people  lived  in  their  stoves,  we  should 
say  that  which  is  literally  true. 

Early  inventions   in   cooking  consisted   in   simple 
14 


THE  STOVE 

devices  for  applying  flame  directly  to  the  thing  which 
was  to  be  cooked.  The  first  roasting  was  doubtless 
done  by  fastening  the  flesh  to  a  pole  placed  in  a 
horizontal  position  above  the  fire  and  supported  as 


is  shown  in  Figure  2.1  The  horizontal  bar  called  a 
spit  was  originally  of  wood,  but  after  man  had  learned 
to  work  in  metals  an  iron  bar  was  used.  When 
one  side  of  the  flesh  was  roasted  the  spit  was  turned 
and  the  other  side  was  exposed  to  the  flames.  The 
spit  of  the  primitive  age  was  the  parent  of  the  mod- 
ern grill  and  broiler. 

Food  was  first  boiled  in  a  hole  in  the  ground.  A 
hole  was  filled  with  water  into  which  heated  stones 
were  thrown.  The  stones,  by  giving  off  their  heat, 
caused  the  water  to  boil  in  a  very  short  time.  After 

1  Several   of  the  illustrations  in   this  chapter  are  reproduced 
through  the  courtesy  of  the  Boston  Stove  C>. 

15 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

the  art  of  making  vessels  of  clay  was  learned,  food 
was  boiled  in  earthen  pots  suspended  above  the  fire. 

The  methods  of  warming  the  house  and  cooking 
the  food  which  have  just  been  described  were  cer- 
tainly crude  and  inconvenient,  but  it  was  thousands 
of  years  before  better  methods  were  invented.  The 
long  periods  of  savagery  and  barbarism  passed  and 
the  period  of  civilization  was  ushered  in,  but  civ- 
ilization did  not  at  once  bring  better  stoves.  Neither 
the  ancient  Egyptians  nor  the  ancient  Greeks  knew 
how  to  heat  a  house  comfortably  and  conveniently. 
All  of  them  used  the  primitive  stove  —  a  fire  on 
the  floor  and  a  hole  in  the  roof.  In  the  house  of 
an  ancient  Greek  there  was  usually  one  room  which 
could  be  heated  when  there  was  need,  and  this  was 
called  the  "black-room"  (atrium) — black  from 
the  soot  and  smoke  which  escaped  from  the  fire  on 
the  floor. 

But  we  must  not  speak  harshly  of  the  ancients 
because  they  were  slow  in  improving  their  methods 
of  heating,  for  in  truth  the  modern  world  has  not 
done  as  well  in  this  direction  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. In  a  book  of  travels  written  only  sixty 
years  ago  may  be  found  the  following  passage:  "  In 
Normandy,  where  the  cold  is  severe  and  fire  expen- 
sive, the  lace-makers,  to  keep  themselves  warm  and 
to  save  fuel,  agree  with  some  farmer  who  has  cows 
in  winter  quarters  to  be  allowed  to  carry  on  their 
work  in  the  society  of  the  cattle.  The  cows  would 
be  tethered  in  a  long  row  on  one  side  of  the  apart- 
16 


THE  STOVE 


ment,  and  the  lace-makers  sit  on  the  ground  on  the 
other  side  with  their  feet  buried  in  the  straw." 
Thus  the  lace-makers  kept  themselves  warm  by  the 
heat  which  came  from  the  bodies  of  the  cattle;  the 
cows,  in  other  words,  served  as  stoves.  This  barba- 
rous method  of  heating,  was  practised  in  some  parts  of 
France  less  than  sixty  years  ago. 


FIG.   3- — A  ROMAN  BRAZIER. 

The  ancient  peoples  around  the  Mediterranean 
may  be  excused  for  not  making  great  progress  in  the 
art  of  heating,  for  their  climate  was  so  mild  that 
they  seldom  had  use  for  fire  in  the  house.  Never- 
theless there  was  in  use  among  these  people  an  in- 
vention which  has  in  the  course  of  centuries  de- 
veloped into  the  stove  of  to-day.  This  was  the 
brazier,  or  warming-pan  (Fig.  3).  The  brazier 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

was  filled  with  burning  charcoal  and  was  carried 
from  room  to  room  as  it  was  needed.  The  un- 
pleasant gases  which  escaped  from  the  charcoal  were 
made  less  offensive,  but  not  less  unhealthy,  by  burn- 
ing perfumes  with  the  fuel.  The  brazier  has  never 
been  entirely  laid  aside.  It  is  still  used  in  Spain  and 
in  other  warm  countries  where  the  necessity  for  fire 
is  rarely  felt. 

The  brazier  satisfied  the  wants  of  Greece,  but  the 
colder  climate  of  Rome  required  something  better; 
and  in  their  efforts  to  invent  something  better,  the 
ancient  Romans  made  real  progress  in  the  art  of 
warming  their  houses.  They  built  a  fire-room  — 
called  a  hypocaust  —  in  the  cellar,  and,  by  means 
of  pipes  made  of  baked  clay,  they  connected  the 
hypocaust  with  different  parts  of  the  house  (Fig. 
4).  Heat  and  smoke  passed  up  together  through 
these  pipes.  The  poor  ancients,  it  seems,  were  for- 
ever persecuted  by  smoke.  However,  after  the 
wood  in  the  hypocaust  was  once  well  charred,  the 
smoke  was  not  so  troublesome.  The  celebrated 
baths  (club-rooms)  of  ancient  Rome  were  heated 
by  means  of  hypocausts  with  excellent  results.  In- 
deed, the  hypocaust  had  many  of  the  features  and 
many  of  the  merits  of  our  modern  furnace.  Its 
weak  feature  was  that  it  had  no  separate  pipe  to 
carry  away  the  smoke.  But  as  there  were  no  chim- 
neys yet  in  the  world,  it  is  no  wonder  there  was  no 
such  pipe. 

The  Romans  made  quite  as  much  progress  in  the 
18 


THE  STOVE 

art  of  cooking  as  they  did  in  the  art  of  heating. 
Perhaps  the  world  has  never  seen  more  skilful  cooks 
than  those  who  served  in  the  mansions  of  the  rich 


FIG.   4. —  A   ROMAN    HYPOCAUST. 

during  the  period  of  the  Roman  Empire  (27  B.C.— 
476  A.D.).  In  this  period  the  great  men  at  Rome 
abandoned  their  plain  way  of  living  and  became 
gourmands.  One  of  them  wished  for  the  neck  of 
'9 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

a  crane,  that  he  might  enjoy  for  a  longer  time  his 
food  as  it  descended.  This  demand  for  tempting 
viands  developed  a  race  of  cooks  who  were  artists  in 
their  way.  Upon  one  occasion  a  king  called  for  a 
certain  kind  of  fish.  The  fish  could  not  be  had,  but 
the  cook  was  equal  to  the  emergency.  "  He  cut  a 
large  turnip  to  the  perfect  imitation  of  the  fish  de- 
sired, and  this  he  fried  and  seasoned  so  skilfully 
that  his  majesty's  taste  was  exquisitely  deceived,  and 
he  praised  the  root  to  his  guests  as  an  excellent  fish." 
Such  excellent  cooking  could  not  be  done  on  a  primi- 
tive stove,  and  along  with  the  improvements  in  the 
art  of  cooking,  there  was  a  corresponding  improve- 
ment at  Rome  in  the  art  of  stove-making. 

When  Rome  fell  (476  A.D.),  many  of  the  best 
features  of  her  civilization  perished  with  her. 
Among  the  things  that  were  lost  to  the  world  were 
the  Roman  methods  of  cooking  and  heating.  When 
the  barbarians  came  in  at  the  front  door,  the  cooks 
fled  from  the  kitchen.  The  hardy  northerners  had 
no  taste  for  dainty  cooking.  Hypocausts  ceased  to 
be  used,  and  were  no  longer  built.  For  several 
hundred  years,  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  the 
fireplace  was  located,  as  of  old,  on  the  floor  in  the 
center  of  the  room,  while  the  smoke  was  allowed  to 
pass  out  through  a  hole  in  the  roof. 

The  eleventh  century  brought  a  great  improve- 
ment in  the  art  of  heating,  and  the  improvement 
came  from  England.  About  the  time  of  the  Con- 
quest (1066)  a  great  deal  of  fighting  was  done  on 
20 


THE  STOVE 


the  roofs  of  English  fortresses,  and  the  smoke  com- 
ing up  through  the  hole  in  the  center  of  the  roof 
proved  'to  be  troublesome  to  the  soldiers.  So  the  fire 
was  moved  from  the  center  of  the  floor  to  a  spot 
near  an  outside  wall,  and  an  opening  was  made 
in  the  wall  just  above  the  fire,  so  that  the  smoke 
could  pass  out.  Here  was  the  origin  of  the  chim- 
ney. Projecting  from  the  wall  above  the  fire  was 
a  hood,  which  served  to  direct  the  smoke  to  the 
opening.  At  first  the  opening  for  the  smoke  ex- 
tended but  a  few  feet  from  the  fire,  but  it  was  soon 
found  that  the  further  up 
the  wall  the  opening  ex- 
tended the  better  was  the 
draft.  So  the  chimney  was 
made  to  run  diagonally  up 
the  wall  as  far  as  possi- 


FIG.  5. —  A  CHIMNEY  AND  FIREPLACE  IN  AN  OLD  ENGLISH  CASTLE, 
21 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

ble.  The  next  and  last  step  in  the  development  of 
the  chimney  was  to  make  a  recess  in  the  wall  as 
a  fireplace,  and  to  build  a  separate  structure  of 
masonry  —  the  chimney  —  for  the  smoke.  By  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  chimneys  were 
usually  built  in  this  way  (Fig.  5).  As  the  fireplace, 
and  chimney  cleared  the  house  of  soot  and  smoke, 
they  grew  in  favor  rapidly.  By  the  end  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  they  were  found  in  the  homes  of 
nearly  all  civilized  people. 

The  open  fireplace  was  always  cheerful,  and  it 
was  comfortable  when  you  were  close  to  it;  but  it 
did  not  heat  all  parts  of  the  room  equally.  That 
part  next  to  the  fireplace  might  be  too  warm  for  com- 
fort, while  in  another  part  of  the  room  it  might  be 
freezing.  About  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century 
efforts  were  made  to  distribute  heat  throughout  the 
room  more  evenly.  These  efforts  led  to  the  in- 
vention of  the  modern  stove.  We  have  learned 
that  the  origin  of  the  stove  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
ancient  brazier.  In  the  middle  ages  the  brazier  in 
France  took  on  a  new  form.  Here  was  a  fire-box 
(Fig.  6)  with  openings  at  the  bottom  for  drafts  of 
air  and  arrangements  at  the  top  for  cooking  things. 
This  French  warming-pan  (rcchaud)  was  the  con- 
necting-link between  the  ancient  brazier  and  the  mod- 
ern stove.  All  it  lacked  of  being  a  stove  was  a 
pipe  to  carry  off  the  smoke,  and  this  was  added  by 
a  Frenchman  named  Savot,  about  two  hundred  years 
ago.  We  owe  the  invention  of  the  chimney  to  Eng- 
22 


THE  STOVE 

land,  but  for  the  stove  we  are  indebted  to  France. 
The  Frenchman  built  an  iron  fire-box,  with  open- 
ings for  drafts,  and  connected  the  box  with  the  chim- 
ney by  means  of  an  iron  flue  or  pipe.  Here  was 
a  stove  which  could  be  placed  in  the  middle  of  the 


<* 

FIG.   6.— A    STOVE  OF  THE   MIDDLE   AGES. 

room,  or  In  any  part  of  the  room  where  it  was  de- 
sirable, and  which  would  send  out  its  heat  evenly  in 
all  directions. 

The  first  stoves  were,  of  course,  clumsy  and  un- 
satisfactory; but  inventors  kept  working   at  them, 
making  them  better  both  for  cooking  and  for  heat- 
23 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

ing.  By  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  stove  was  practically  what  it  is  to-day  (Fig. 
7).  Stoves  proved  to  be  so  much  better  than  fire- 
places, that  the  latter  were  gradually  replaced  in 
large  part  by  the  former.  Our  affection,  however, 


FIG.   7. —  THE   A1ODEKN    STOVE. 

for  a  blazing  fire  is  strong,  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
the  old-fashioned  fireplace  (Fig.  8)  will  ever  en- 
tirely disappear. 

The  French  stove  just  described  is  intended  to 
heat  only  one  room.  If  a  house  with  a  dozen  rooms 
is  to  be  heated,  a  dozen  stoves  are  necessary.  About 
one  hundred  years  ago  there  began  to  appear  an 
invention  by  which  a  house  of  many  rooms  could  be 
24 


THE  STOVE 

heated  by  means  of  one  stove.  This  invention  was 
the  furnace.  Place  in  the  cellar  a  large  stove,  and 
run  pipes  from  the  stove  to  the  different  rooms  of  the 


FIG.    8. —  AN    OLD-FASHIONED   FIREPLACE   AND   OVEN. 

house,  and  you  have  a  furnace  (Fig.  9).  Doubt- 
less we  got  our  idea  of  the  furnace  from  the  Roman 
hypocaust,  although  the  Roman  invention  had  no 
special  pipe  for  the  smoke.  The  first  furnaces  sent 
out  only  hot  air,  but  in  recent  years  steam  or  hot 
water  is  sent  out  through  the  pipes  to  radiators, 
25 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

which  are  simply  secondary   stoves   set  up   in   con- 
venient places  and  at  a  distance  from  the  source  of 


FIG.  9. —  A    MODERN  FURXACE. 


the  heat,  the  furnace  in  the  cellar.      Furnaces  were 
invented  for  the  purpose  of  heating  large  buildings, 
but  they  are  now  used  in  ordinary  dwellings. 
26 


THE  STOVE 

In  its  last  and  most  highly  developed  form,  the 
stove  appears  not  only  without  dust  and  smoke,  but 
also  without  even  a  fire  in  the  cellar.  The  modern 
electric  stove,  of  course,  is  meant.  Pass  a  slight 
current  of  electricity  through  a  piece  of  platinum 
wire,  and  the  platinum  becomes  hot.  You  have 
made  a  diminutive  electric  stove.  Increase  the 
strength  of  your  current  and  pass  it  through  some- 
thing which  offers  greater  resistance  than  the  plati- 
num, and  you  get  more  heat.  The  electric  stove 
is  a  new  invention,  and  at  present  it  is  too  expensive 
for  general  use,  although  the  number  of  houses  in 
which  it  is  used  is  rapidly  increasing,  and  in  time 
it  may  drive  out  all  other  kinds  of  stoves.  It  will 
certainly  drive  all  of  them  out  if  the  cost  of  elec- 
tricity shall  be  sufficiently  reduced;  for  it  is  the  clean- 
est, the  healthiest,  the  most  convenient,  and  the  most 
easily  controlled  of  stoves. 


THE   LAMP 

NEXT  to  its  usefulness  for  heating  and  cook- 
ing, the  greatest  use  of  fire  is  to  furnish  light 
to  drive  away  darkness.  Man  is  not  content,  like 
birds  and  brutes,  to  go  to  sleep  at  the  setting  of  the 
sun.  He  takes  a  part  of  the  night-time  and  uses  it 
for  work  or  for  travel  or  for  social  pleasures,  or  for 
the  improvement  of  his  mind,  and  in  this  way  adds 
several  years  to  life.  He  could  not  do  this  if  he 
were  compelled  to  grope  in  darkness.  When  the 
great  source  of  daylight  disappears  he  must  make 
light  for  himself,  for  the  sources  of  night-light  — 
the  moon  and  stars  and  aurora  borealis  and  light- 
ning —  are  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  his  wants.  In  this 
chapter  we  shall  follow  man  in  his  efforts  to  con- 
quer darkness,  and  we  shall  have  the  story  of  the 
lamp. 

We  may  begin  the  story  with  an  odd  but  interest- 
ing kind  of  lamp.  The  firefly  or  lightning-bug 
which  we  see  so  often  in  the  summer  nights  was  in 
the  earliest  time  brought  into  service  and  made  to 
shed  its  light  for  man.  Fireflies  were  imprisoned 
in  a  rude  box  —  in  the  shell  of  a  cocoanut,  perhaps, 
or  in  a  gourd  —  and  the  light  of  their  bodies  was 
allowed  to  shoot  out  through  the  numerous  holes 
28 


THE  LAMP 


FIG.    I. —  A  FIREFLY  LAMP. 


made  in  the  box.  We  must  not  despise  the  light 
given  out  by  these  tiny  creatures.  "  In  the  moun- 
tains of  Tijuca,"  says  a 
traveler,  "  I  have  read  the 
finest  print  by  the  light  of 
one  of  these  natural  lamps 
(fireflies)  placed  under  a 
common  glass  tumbler 
(Fig.  i),  and  with  distinct- 
ness I  could  tell  the  hour  of 
the  night  and  discern  the 
very  small  figures  which 
marked  the  seconds  of  a  little  Swiss  watch." 

Although  fireflies  have  been  used  here  and  there 
by  primitive  folk,  they  could 
hardly  have  been  the  first 
lamp.  Man's  battle  with 
darkness  really  began  with 
the  torch,  which  was  lighted 
at  the  fire  in  the  cave  or  in  the 
wigwam  and  kept  burning  for 
purposes  of  illumination.  A 
burning  stick  was  the  first 
lamp  (Fig.  2).  The  first 
improvement  in  the  torch 
was  made  when  slivers  or 
splinters  of  resinous  or  oily 
wood  were  tied  together  and 
burned.  We  may  regard 
this  as  a  lamp  which  is  all 
29 


FIG.   2. —  A   BURNING  STICK 
WAS  THE  FIRST  LAMP. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

wick.  This  invention  resulted  in  a  fuller  and 
clearer  light,  and  one  that  would  burn  longer  than 
the  single  stick.  A  further  improvement  came  when 
a  long  piece  of  wax  or  fatty  substance  was  wrapped 
about  with  leaves.  This  was  something  like  a 
candle,  only  the  wick  (the  leaves)  was  outside,  and 
the  oily  substance  which  fed  the  wick  was  in  the 
center. 

In  the  course  of  time  it  was  discovered  that  it  was 
better  to  smear  the  grease  on  the  outside  of  the 
stick,  or  on  the  outside  of  whatever  was  to  be  burned; 
that  is,  that  it  was  better  to  have  the  wick  inside. 
Torches  were  then  made  of  rope  coated  with  resin 
or  fat,  or  of  sticks  or  splinters  smeared  with  grease; 
here  the  stick  resembled  the  wick  of  the  candle  as 
we  know  it  to-day,  and  the  coating  of  fat  cor- 
responded to  the  tallow  or  paraffin.  Rude  candles 
made  of  oiled  rope  or  of  sticks  smeared  with  fat  were 
invented  in  primitive  times,  and  they  continued  to 
be  used  for  thousands  of  years  after  men  were  civ- 
ilized. In  the  dark  ages  —  and  they  were  dark  in 
more  senses  than  one  —  torch-makers  began  to  wrap 
the  central  stick  first  with  flax  or  hemp  and  then 
place  around  this  a  thick  layer  of  fat.  This  torch 
gave  a  very  good  light,  but  about  the  time  of  Alfred 
the  Great  (900  A.D.)  another  step  was  taken:  the 
central  stick  was  left  out  altogether,  and  the  thick 
layer  of  fat  or  wax  was  placed  directly  around  the 
wick  of  twisted  cotton.  All  that  was  left  of  the 
original  torch  —  the  stick  of  wood  —  was  gone. 
30 


THE  LAMP 


The  torch  had  developed  into  the  candle  (Fig.  3). 

The  candles  of  to-day  are  made  of  better  material 

than  those  of  the  olden  time,  and  they 

are    much    cheaper;    yet    in    principle 

they  do  not  differ  from  the  candles  of  a 

thousand  years  ago. 

I  have  given  the  development  of  the 

candle  first  because  its  forerunner,  the 

torch,  was  first  used  for  lighting.      But 

it  must   not  be    forgotten   that   along 

with  the  torch  there  was  used,  almost 

from  the  beginning,   another  kind   of 

lamp.     Almost    as    soon    as    men    dis- 
covered that  the  melted  fat  of  animals 

would  burn  easily  —  and  that  w^s  cer- 
tainly very  long  ago  —  they  invented 

in  a  rude  form  the  lamp  from  which 

the  lamp  of  to-day  has  been  evolved. 

The  cavity  of  a  shell  (Fig.  4)  or  of  a  stone,  or  of  the 

skull  of  an  animal,  was  filled  with  melted  fat  or  oil, 
and  a  wick  of  flax  or  other 
fibrous  material  was  laid 
upon  the  edge  of  the  ves- 
sel. The  oil  or  grease 
passed  up  the  wick  by 
capillary  action,1  and 

when  the  end  of  the  wick  was  lighted  it  continued  to 

burn  as  long  as  there  were  both  oil  and  wick.     This 

1  Hold  the  end  of  a  dry  towel  in  a  basin  of  water  and  watch 
the  water  rise  in  the  towel.     It  rises  by  capillary  action. 

31 


FIG.  3. —  THE 
CANDLE. 


FIG.  4. —  A  SHELL  FILLED  WITH 
OIL  AND  USED  AS  A  LAMP. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

was  the  earliest  lamp.  As  man  became  more  civil- 
ized, instead  of  a  hollow  stone  or  a  skull,  an  earthen 
saucer  or  bowl  was  used.  Around  the  edge  of  the 
bowl  a  gutter  or  spout  was  made  for  holding  the 
wick.  In  the  lamp  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and 


FIG.   5.— AN   ETRUSCAN  LAMP  25OO  YEARS  OLD. 

Romans  the  reservoir  which  held  the  oil  was  closed, 
although  in  the  center  there  was  a  hole  through 
which  the  oil  might  be  poured.  Sometimes  one  of 
these  lamps  would  have  several  spouts  or  nozzles. 
The  more  wicks  a  lamp  had,  of  course,  the  more 
32 


THE  LAMP 


light  it  would  give.  There  is  in  the  museum  at  Cor- 
tona,  in  Italy,  an  ancient  lamp  which  has  sixteen 
nozzles.  This  interesting  relic  (Fig.  5)  was  used 
in  a  pagan  temple  in  Etruria  more  than  twenty-five 
hundred  years  ago. 

Lamps  such  as  have  just  been  described  were  used 
among  the  civilized  peoples  of  the  ancient  world, 
and  continued  to  be  used  through  the  Middle  Ages 
far  into  modern  times. 
They  were  sometimes  very 
costly  and  beautiful  (Fig. 
6),  but  they  never  gave  a 
good  light.  They  sent  out 
an  unpleasant  odor,  and 
they  were  so  smoky  that 
they  covered  the  walls  and 
furniture  with  soot.  The 
candle  was  in  every  way 
better  than  the  ancient 
lamp,  and  after  the  inven- 
tion of  wax  tapers — can- 
dles made  of  wax  —  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  lamps  were  no  longer  used 
by  those  who  could  afford  to  buy  tapers.  For 
ordinary  purposes  and  ordinary  people,  however,  the 
lamp  continued  to  do  service,  but  it  was  not  Im- 
proved. The  eighteenth  century  had  nearly  passed, 
and  the  lamp  was  still  the  unsatisfactory,  disagree- 
able thing  it  had  always  been. 

Late  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  improvement 
33 


FIG.    6. —  AN    ANCIENT    LAMP. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

came.  In  1783  a  man  named  Argand,  a  Swiss 
physician  residing  in  London,  invented  a  lamp  that 
was  far  better  than  any  that  had  ever  been  made  be- 
fore. What  did  Argand  do  for  the  lamp?  Ex- 
amine an  ordinary  lamp  in  which  coal-oil  is  burned. 
The  chimney  protects  the 
flame  from  sudden  gusts 
of  wind  and  also  creates  a 
draft  of  air,1  just  as  the  fire- 
chimney  creates  a  draft. 
Argand's  lamp  (Fig.  7)  was 
the  first  to  have  a  chimney. 
Look  below  the  chimney  and 
you  will  see  open  passages 
through  which  air  may  pass 
upward  and  find  its  way  to 
the  wick.  Notice  further 
that  as  this  draft  of  air 
passes  upward  it  is  so  di- 
rected that,  when  the  lamp 
is  burning,  an  extra  quantity 

FIG.  7. —  AN  ARGAND  LAMP.  ......  ,  , 

of  air  plays  directly  upon  the 

wick.  Before  Argand,  the  wick  received  no 
supply  of  air.  Now  notice  —  and  this  is  very  im- 
portant—  that  the  wick  of  our  modern  lamp  is 
flat  or  circular,  but  thin.  The  air  in  abundance 

1  Light  a  short  piece  of  candle  and  place  it  in  a  tumbler,  and 
cover  the  top  of  the  tumbler.  The  experiment  teaches  that  a 
flame  must  have  a  constant  supply  of  fresh  air  and  will  go  out 
if  the  air  is  shut  off.ri 

34 


THE  LAMP 

plays  upon  both  sides  of  the  thin  wick,  and  burns  it 
without  making  smoke.  Smoke  is  simply  half- 
burned  particles  (soot)  of  a  burning  substance. 
The  particles  pass  off  half-burned  because  enough 
air  has  not  been  supplied.  Now  Argand,  by  mak- 
ing the  wick  thin  and  by  causing  plenty  of  air  to 
rush  into  the  flame,  caused  all  the  wick  to  be  burned 
and  thereby  caused  it  to  burn  with  a  white  flame. 

After  the  invention  of  Argand,  the  art  of  lamp- 
making  improved  by  leaps  and  by  bounds.  More 
progress  was  made  in  twenty  years  after  1783  than 
had  been  made  in  twenty  centuries  before.  New 
burners  were  invented,  new  and  better  oils  were 
used,  and  better  wicks  made.  But  all  the  new  kinds 
of  lamps  were  patterned  after  the  Argand.  The 
lamp  you  use  at  home  may  not  be  a  real  Argand,  but 
it  is  doubtless  made  according  to  the  principles  of  the 
lamp  invented  by  the  Swiss  physician  in  1783. 

Soon  after  Argand  invented  his  lamp,  William 
Murdock,  a  Scottish  inventor,  showed  the  world  a 
new  way  of  lighting  a  house.  It  had  long  been 
known  that  fat  or  coal,  when  heated,  gives  off  a 
vapor  or  gas  which  burns  with  a  bright  light.  In- 
deed, it  is  always  a  gas  that  burns,  and  not  a  hard 
substance.  In  the  candle  or  in  the  lamp  the  flame 
heats  the  oil  which  comes  up  to  it  through  the  wick 
and  thus  causes  the  oil  to  give  off  a  gas.  It  is  this 
gas  that  burns  and  gives  the  light.  Now  Murdock, 
in  1797,  put  this  principle  to  a  good  use.  He  heated 
coal  in  a  large  vessel,  and  allowed  the  gas  which 
35 


FIR.    8.—  THE    GAS    JET 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

was  driven  off  to  pass  through  mains  and  tubes  to 
different  parts  of  his  house.  Wherever  he  wanted 
a  light  he  let  the  gas  es- 
cape at  the  end  of  the 
tube  (Fig.  8)  in  a  small 
jet  and  lighted  it.  Here 
was  a  lamp  without  a  wick. 
Murdock  soon  extended 
his  gas-pipes  to  his  fac- 
tories, and  lighted  them 
with  gas.  As  soon  as  it 
was  learned  how  to  make  gas  cheaply,  and  conduct  it 
safely  from  house  to  house,  whole  cities  were  rescued 
from  darkness  by  the  new  illuminant.  A  considerable 
part  of  London  was  lighted  by  gas  in  1815.  Balti- 
more was  the  first  city  in  the  United 
States  to  be  lighted  by  gas.  This  was 
in  1821. 

The  gas-light  proved  to  be  so  much 
better  than  even  the  best  of  lamps, 
that  in  towns  and  cities  almost  every- 
body who  could  afford  to  do  so  laid 
aside  the  old  wick-lamp  and  burned 
gas.     About    1876,   however,   a   new   ; 
kind  of  light  began  to  appear.     This  -' 
was  the  electric  light.     The  powerful   '' 
arc  light  (Fig.  9),  made  by  the  pas-  FIG.  9-— AN  EARLY 
sage   of  a  current   of   electricity   be- 
tween two   carbon   points,   was   the   first   to   be   in- 
vented.    This   gave   as   much    light   as   a   hundred 
36 


THE  LAMP 

gas-jets  or  several  hundred  lamps.  Such  a  light 
was  excellent  for  lighting  streets,  but  its  painful 
glare  and  its  sputtering  rendered  it  unfit  for  use 
within  doors.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  an 
electric  light  was  invented  which  could  be  used  any- 
where. This  was  the  famous  Edison's  incandescent 
or  glow  lamp  (Fig.  10) ,  which  we  see  on  every  hand. 
Edison's  invention  is  only  a  few  years  old,  yet  there 
are  already  more  than  thirty  million  incandescent 
lamps  in  use  in  the  United  States  alone. 


FIG.    IO. —  AN   INCANDESCENT  ELECTRIC   LIGHT. 

The  torch,  the  candle,  the  lamp,  the  gas-light,  the 
electric  light, —  these  are  the  steps  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  lamp.  And  how  marvelous  a  growth 
it  is!  How  great  the  triumph  over  darkness!  In 
the  beginning  a  piece  of  wood  burns  with  a  dull 
flame,  and  fills  the  dingy  wigwam  or  cave  with  soot 
and  smoke;  now,  at  the  pressure  of  a  button,  the 
house  is  filled  with  a  light  that  rivals  the  light  of 
day,  with  not  a  particle  of  smoke  or  soot  or  harm- 
ful gas.  Are  there  to  be  further  triumphs  in  the 
art  of  lighting?  Are  we  to  have  a  light  that  shall 
drive  out  the  electric  light  ?  Only  time  can  tell. 

37 


THE  FORGE 

AFTER  men  had  learned  how  to  use  fire  for 
cooking  and  heating  and  lighting  they  slowly 
learned  how  to  use  it  when  working  with  metals. 
In  the  earliest  times  metals  were  not  used.  For 
long  ages  stone  was  the  only  material  that  man 
could  fashion  and  shape  to  his  use.  During  this 
period,  sometimes  called  the  "  stone  age,"  weapons 
were  made  of  stone;  dishes  and  cooking  utensils  were 
made  of  stone;  and  even  the  poor,  rude  tools  of  the 
age  were  made  of  stone  (Fig.  i). 

In  the  course  of  time  man  learned  how  to  make 
his  implements  and  weapons  of  metals  as  well  as  of 
stone.  It  is  generally  thought  that  bronze  was  the 
first  metal  to  be  used  and  that  the  "  stone  age  "  was 
followed  directly  by  the  "  bronze  age,"  a  period 
when  all  utensils,  weapons,  and  tools  were  made 
of  bronze  (Fig.  2) .  It  is  easy  to  believe  that  bronze 
was  used  before  iron,  for  bronze  is  made  of  a  mix- 
ture of  tin  and  copper  and  these  two  metals  are 
often  found  in  their  pure  or  natural  state.  When- 
ever primitive  man,  therefore,  found  pieces  of  pure 
copper  and  tin,  he  could  take  the  two  metals  and  by 
melting  them  could  easily  mix  them  and  make  bronze 
of  them.  This  bronze  he  could  fashion  to  his  use. 
38 


THE  FORGE 


FIG.    I. —  IMPLEMENTS   OF   THE   STONE   AGE. 

39 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


FIG.   2. —  IMPLEMENTS  OF  THE  BRONZE  AGE. 
40 


THE  FORGE 

There  is  no  doubt  that  he  did  this  at  a  very  early 
age.  In  nearly  all  parts  of  the  world  there  are 
proofs  that  in  primitive  times,  many  articles  were 
made  of  bronze. 

If  primitive  man  were  slow  to  learn  the  use  of  iron 
it  was  not  because  this  metal  was  scarce,  for  iron 
is  everywhere.  "  Wherever,  as  we  go  up  and  down, 
we  see  a  red-colored  surface,  or  a  reddish  tint  upon 
the  solid  substances  of  the  earth,  we  see  iron  —  the 
bank  of  red  clay,  the  red  brick,  the  red  paint  upon 
the  house  wall,  the  complexion  of  rosy  youth,  or  my 
lady's  ribbon.  Even  the  rosy  apple  derives  its  tint 
from  iron  which  it  contains."  1  But  although  iron 
is  so  abundant  it  is  seldom  found  in  its  pure  or 
natural  state.  It  is  nearly  always  mixed  with  other 
substances,  the  mixture  being  known  as  iron  ore. 
Primitive  man  could  find  copper  and  tin  in  their  pure 
state  but  the  only  pure  iron  he  could  find  was  the 
little  which  fell  from  heaven  in  the  form  of  meteors, 
and  even  this  was  not  perfectly  pure  for  meteoric 
iron  is  also  mixed  slightly  with  other  metals. 

The  iron  which  lay  about  primitive  man  in  such 
abundance  was  buried  and  locked  tightly  in  an  ore. 
To  separate  the  iron  from  the  other  substances 
of  the  ore  was  by  no  means  an  easy  thing  to  do. 
Iron  can  best  be  extracted  from  the  ore  by  putting 
the  ore  in  a  fire  and  melting  out  the  iron.  Place 
some  iron  ore  in  a  fire  and  if  the  fire  is  hot  enough 
—  and  it  must  be  very  hot  indeed  —  the  iron  will 

1 J.  R.  Smith,  "  The  Story  of  Iron  and  Steel,"  p.  3. 
41 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

leave  the  ore  and  will  gather  into  a  lump  at  the 
bottom  of  the  fire.  To  separate  the  iron  from  its 
ore  in  this  way  is  to  make  iron.  When  and  where 
man  first  learned  the  secret  of  making  iron  is  of 


FIG.    3. —  THE   PRIMITIVE   FORGE. 

course  unknown.  A  camp-fire  in  some  part  of  the 
world  may  have  shown  to  man  the  first  lump  of  iron, 
or  a  forest  fire  sweeping  along  and  melting  ores  in 
its  path  may  have  given  the  first  hint  for  the  manu- 
facture of  iron. 

Iron  making  at  first  doubtless  consisted  in  simply 
melting  the  ore  in  an  open  heap  of  burning  wood  or 
charcoal,  for  charcoal  is  an  excellent  fuel  for  smelt- 
42 


THE  FORGE 

ing  (melting)  ores.  But  this  open-fire  method  was 
wasteful  and  tedious  and  at  a  very  early  date  the 
smelting  of  the  ore  was  done  in  a  rude  sort  of  a  fur- 
nace. A  hole  ten  or  twelve  feet  deep  was  dug  in 
the  side  of  a  hill.  In  the  hole  were  placed  char- 
coal and  iron  ore,  first  a  layer  of  charcoal,  then  a 
layer  of  the  ore.  At  the  top  of  the  mass  there  was 
an  opening  and  at  the  bottom  there  were  several 
openings.  When  the  mass  was  set  on  fire  the  open- 
ings produced  a  good  strong  draft,  the  charcoal  was 
consumed,  and  the  ore  was  smelted.  The  product 
was  a  lump  of  wrought  iron,  known  as  the  bloom. 

The  hillside  furnace*  worked  well  enough  when 
the  wind  was  favorable,  but  when  the  wind  was  un- 
favorable there  was  no  draft  and  no  iron  could 
be  made.  So  ironmakers  found  a  way  by  which 
the  air  could  be  driven  into  the  furnace  by  artificial 
means.  They  invented  the  bellows,  a  blowing  ap- 
paratus (Fig.  3)  which  was  usually  made  of  goat 
skins  sewed  together  and  which  was  operated  either 
by  the  hands  or  by  the  feet  (Fig.  4) .  Sometimes  the 
bellows  consisted  of  a  hollow  log  in  which  a  piston 
was  worked  up  and  down  (Fig.  5).  After  the  in- 
vention of  the  bel- 
1  o  w  s,  ironmakers 
could  make  their 
iron  whenever  and 
wherever  they 
pleased,  for  they 

FIG.  4.- BELLOWS  WORKED  BY  THE  FEET.       COuld    f°rCC    ™    «>tO 
43 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

their  furnaces  at  any  time  and  at  any  place.  This 
rude  bellows  forcing  a  draft  of  air  into  a  half- 
closed  furnace  filled  with  a  burning  mass  of  charcoal 
and  iron  ore  was  the  first  form  of  the  forge,  one  of 
the  greatest  of  all  inventions. 

With  the  invention  of  the   forge  the  stone   age 
gradually  passed  away  and  the  iron  age  was  ushered 


FIG.  5. —  THE  WOODEN   BELLOWS. 

in.  Tools  and  weapons  could  now  be  made  of  iron. 
And  great  was  the  difference  between  iron  tools  and 
stone  tools.  To  cut  down  a  tree  with  a  flint  hatchet 
required  the  labor  of  a  man  for  a  month,  while  to 
clear  a  forest  with  such  an  implement  was  an  im- 
possible task.  But  the  forge  gave  to  man  iron  for 
the  sharp  cutting  tools,  for  the  ax  and  knife  and 
chisel  and  saw.  With  these  he  became  the  master  of 
wood  and  he  could  now  easily  cut  down  trees  and 
44 


THE  FORGE 

build  houses  and  make  furniture  and  wagons  and 
boats. 

As  time  went  on  and  man  advanced  in  civilization, 
iron  was  found  to  be  the  most  useful  of  metals. 
Iron  can  be  shaped  into  many  forms.  It  can  be 
drawn  into  wire  of  any  desired  length  or  fineness,  it 
may  be  bent  in  any  direction,  it  may  be  sharpened, 
or  hardened,  or  softened,  at  pleasure.  "  Iron  ac- 
commodates itself  to  all  our  wants  and  desires  and 
even  to  our  caprices.  It  is  equally  serviceable  to  the 
arts,  the  sciences,  to  agriculture  and  war;  the  same 
ore  furnishes  the  sword,  the  plowshare,  the  scythe, 
the  pruning-hook,  the  needle,  the  spring  of  a  watch 
or  of  a  carriage,  the  chisel,  the  chain,  the  anchor, 
the  compass  and  the  bomb.  It  is  a  medicine  of  much 
virtue  and  the  only  metal  friendly  to  the  human 
frame."  l 

A  metal  that  was  so  useful  was  needed  in  large 
quantities,  yet  the  primitive  forge  could  turn  out 
only  small  quantities  of  iron.  A  day's  labor  at  the 
bellows  would  produce  a  lump  weighing  only  fifteen 
or  twenty  pounds.  As  a  result  of  this  slowness  in 
manufacture  there  was  always  in  primitive  and 
ancient  times  a  scarcity  of  iron.  Indeed  in  some 
countries  iron  was  a  precious  metal,  almost  as 
precious  as  silver  or  gold.  In  many  countries,  it  is 
true,  there  were  thousands  of  forges  at  work,  but 
in  no  country  was  the  supply  of  iron  equal  to  the  de- 
mand. The  old  forge  could  not  supply  the  demand, 

1  From  "Five  Black  Arts,"  p.  311. 

45 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


yet  centuries  passed  before  any  great  improvement 
was  made  in  the  progress  of  iron  making. 

Near  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  improvements 

upon  the  prim- 
itive forge  be- 
gan to  be  made. 
In  the  sixteenth 
century  iron- 
makers  in  Ger- 
many began  to 
smdt  ore  in 
closed  furnaces 
and  to  build 
their  furnaces 
higher  and  to 
make  them 
larger  (Fig.  6). 
Sometimes  they 
built  their  fur- 
naces to  a  height 
of  t  w  e  n  t  y  or 
thirty  feet. 
About  this  time 
also  a  better 
and  a  stronger 
blast  was  invent- 


FIG.    6.— A   BLAST   FURNACE   OF   THE    MIDDLE 
1       AGES. 

ed.  Water- 
power  instead  of  hand-power  began  to  be  used  for 
operating  the  bellows.  In  some  cases  wooden  bel- 
lows—  great  wooden  pistons  working  in  tubs 

46 


THE  FORGE 

were  substituted  for  the  old  bellows  of  leather.  By 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  so  many  improve- 
ments had  been  made  upon  the  primitive  forge  that 
it  no  longer  resembled  the  forge  of  ancient  times. 
So  the  new  forge  received  a  new  name  and  was  called 
a  blast  furnace.1  You  should  observe,  however, 
that  the  blast  furnace  was  simply  the  old  forge  built 
with  a  large  closed  furnace  and  provided  with  a 
more  powerful  blast. 

The  invention  of  the  blast  furnace  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  iron  mak- 
ing. In  the  first  place  there  was  produced  in  the 
blast  furnace  a  kind  of  iron  that  was  entirely  dif- 
ferent from. that  which  was  produced  in  the  primi- 
tive forge.  In  the  primitive  forge  there  was  made 
a  lump  of  practically  pure  unmelted  iron,  known  as 
wrought  iron.  In  the  blast  furnace  there  was  pro- 
duced a  somewhat  impure  grade  of  melted  iron, 
known  as  cast  iron,  or  pig  ~  iron.  In  the  second 
place,  the  blast  furnace  produced  iron  in  quantities 
vastly  greater  than  it  was  ever  produced  by  the  old 

1  The  old  forge  continued  to  be  used  by  the  side  of  the  blast 
furnace  for  centuries,  and  of  course  where  it  was  used  it  was 
still  called  a  forge.     Thus  we  are  told  that  in  Maryland  in  1761, 
there  were  eight   furnaces  and  ten   forges.     It   is   said  that  as 
late  as  twenty-five  years  ago  in  certain  parts  of  the  Appalachian 
regions  the  American  mountaineer  still  worked  the  little  primitive 
forge  to  make  his  iron. 

2  It  was  given  the  name  of  pig  iron  because  when  the  molten 
metal   ran   into   the   impressions  made   for   it   upon   the   sanded 
floor  and   cooled,   it   assumed   a  shape   resembling  a   family   of 
little  pigs. 

47 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

forge.  In  the  blast  furnace  more  iron  could  be  made 
in  a  day  than  could  be  made  by  the  forge  in  a  month. 
In  some  of  the  early  blast  furnaces  a  thousand 
pounds  of  iron  could  be  made  at  one  melting  and  we 
read  of  one  early  furnace  that  produced  150  tons  of 
iron  in  a  year. 

But  even  with  the  blast  furnace  it  was  still  diffi- 
cult to  make  enough  iron  to  supply  the  ever-increas- 


,•    ' 


FIG.    7. —  MAKING   CHARCOAL. 

ing  demands  of  the  industrial  world.  In  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries  machinery  was 
brought  into  use  more  than  ever  before  and  of  course 
more  iron  was  needed  for  the  construction  of  the 
machines.  There  was  ore  enough  for  all  the  iron 
that  was  needed  but  it  was  difficult  to  get  fuel  enough 
to  smelt  the  ore.  Charcoal  was  still  used  as  the 
fuel  for  smelting  (Fig.  7),  and  in  order  to  get  wood 
48 


THE  FORGE 

for  the  charcoal  great  inroads  were  made  upon  the 
forests.  In  England  in  the  early  part  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  Parliament  had  to  put  a  check  upon 
the  manufacture  of  iron  in  certain  counties  in  order 
to  save  the  forests  of  those  counties  from  utter 
destruction.  It  then  became  plain  that  if  iron  mak- 
ing were  to  be  continued  on  a  large  scale  a  new  kind 
of  fuel  would  have  to  be  used  in  the  furnaces.  So 
men  set  their  wits  to  work  to  find  a  new  kind  of  fuel. 
As  far  back  as  1619  Dud  Dudley  in  the  county  of 
Warwick,  England,  undertook  to  use  ordinary  soft 
coal  in  his  furnaces  but  his  experiment  was  not  very 
successful  or  very  profitable.  More  than  a  century 
after  this  an  English  ironmaker  named  Abraham 
Darby  began  (in  1735)  to  use  charred  coal  in  his 
blast  furnaces,  and  his  experiments  were  successful. 
Here  was  the  new  fuel  which  was  so  badly  needed. 
Charred  coal  is  simply  coke  and  coke  could  be  had 
in  abundance.  So  the  new  fuel  was  soon  used  in 
all  parts  of  England  and  by  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  coke  was  driving  charcoal  out  of  blast  fur- 
naces ( Fig.  8 ) . 

About  the  time  the  use  of  coke  for  smelting  be- 
came general,  an  Englishman  named  Neilson  brought 
about  another  great  change  in  the  process  of  iron 
making.  Before  Neilson's  time  the  blast  driven  into 
the  furnace  had  always  been  one  of  cold  air.  Neil- 
son  learned  that  if  the  air  before  entering  the  furnace 
were  heated  to  a  temperature  of  600  degrees  it  would 
melt  twice  the  amount  of  ore  and  thus  produce  twice 
49 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

the  amount  of  iron  without  any  increase  in  the  amount 
of  fuel.  So  he  invented  (in  1828)  a  lwi  blast  for 
the  blast  furnace  (Fig.  9).  With  the  use  of  coke 
and  with  the  hot  blast  the  production  of  iron  increased 
enormously.  But  there  was  need  for  all  the  iron  that 
could  be  made.  Indeed  it  seems  that  the  world  can 
never  get  too  much  iron.  About  the  time  the  hot 
blast  was  invented  iron  chains  instead  of  ropes  be- 


FIG.   8. —  A    PITTSBURGH    COKE   OVEN. 

gan  to  be  used  for  holding  anchors,  iron  plows 
began  to  be  made  in  great  numbers  (p.  83),  iron 
pipes  instead  of  hollow  wooden  logs  began  to  be  used 
as  water-mains  in  cities,  and  iron  rails  began  to  be 
used  on  railroads.  To  supply  iron  for  all  these 
purposes  kept  ironmakers  busy  enough,  even  though 
they  burned  coke  in  their  furnaces  and  made  use  of 
the  hot  air  blast. 

But  ironmakers  were  soon  to  become  busier  than 
50 


THE  FORGE 

ever  before.  About  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Sir  Henry  Bessemer  invented  a  new  process 
of  making  steel.  Steel  is  only  iron  mixed  with  a 
small  amount  of  carbon.  Ironmakers  have  known 


A    MODERN    III.AST    Fl'KN.UK. 


how  to  make  steel  —  and  good  steel,  too  —  for  thou- 
sands of  years,  but  before  the  days  of  Bessemer  the 
process  had  always  been  slow  and  tedious,  and  the 
cost  of  steel  had  always  been  very  great.  Bessemer 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


u. 


From    copyright    stereograph    by  Underwood  &  I'n 
FIG.    10.  —  GREAT   STEEL  RAIL   PASSING   THROUGH    ROLLER   STEEL    MILL. 


THE  FORGE 

undertook  to  make  steel  in  large  quantities  and  at 
low  prices.  In  his  experiments  amid  showers  of 
molten  metal  he  often  risked  his  life,  but  his  perse- 
verance and  courage  were  rewarded.  By  1858  he 
had  invented  a  process  by  which  tons  of  molten  iron 
could  be  run  into  a  furnace  and  in  a  few  minutes  be 
converted  into  a  fine  quality  of  steel.  This  invention 
of  Bessemer  was  the  last  great  step  in  the  history  of 
the  forge. 

Now  that  steel  could  be  made  in  great  quantities 
and  at  a  low  cost  it  was  put  to  uses  never  dreamed 
of  in  former  times.  Soon  the  railroad  rail  was  made 
of  steel  (Fig.  10),  bridges  were  made  of  steel,  ships 
of  war  were  plated  with  steel.  Then  ocean  gray- 
hounds  and  battleships  were  made  of  steel,  still  later 
steel  freight  cars  and  steel  passenger  coaches  were  in- 
troduced, while  in  our  own  time  we  see  vast  quanti- 
ties of  steel  used  in  the  building  of  houses.  So  while 
the  invention  of  Bessemer  marked  the  last  step  in  the 
history  of  the  forge  it  also  marked  the  ending  of  the 
Age  of  Iron  and  the  beginning  of  the  wonderful  age 
in  which  we  live  —  the  Age  of  Steel. 


53 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

WE  have  now  traced  the  steps  by  which  man 
mastered  the  art  of  kindling^  a  fire  quickly 
and  easily  and  have  followed  the  progress  that  has 
been  made  in  the  most  common  uses  of  fire.  But 
the  story  of  a  most  important  use  of  fire  remains 
to  be  told,  the  story  of  its  use  in  doing  man's  work. 
How  important  this  use  is,  how  much  of  the  world's 
work  is  done  through  the  agency  of  fire,  a  little 
reflection  will  make  plain.  Fire  makes  steam  and 
what  does  steam  do?  Its  services  are  so  many  you 
could  hardly  name  all  of  them.  The  great  and  many 
services  of  steam  are  made  possible  by  the  fire-engine, 
or  steam-engine,  and  the  story  of  this  wonderful 
invention  will  now  be  told. 

That  steam  has  the  power  to  move  things  must 
have  been  learned  almost  as  soon  as  fire  was  used 
to  boil  water.  Heat  water  until  it  boils  and  the 
steam  that  is  formed  is  bound  to  move  something 
unless  it  is  allowed  to  escape  freely.  It  will  burst 
the  vessel  if  an  outlet  is  not  provided.  That  is  why 
a  spout  has  been  placed  on  the  tea-kettle.  Where 
there  is  cooking,  steam  is  abundant  and  the  first  ex- 
periments in  steam  were  doubtless  made  in  the  kitchen 
54 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 


(Fig.  i).  It  has  been  said  that  the  idea  of  the 
steam-engine  first  occurred  to  Adam  as  he  watched 
his  wife's  kettle  boil. 

Whatever  may  have  happened  in  ancient  kitchens, 
we  are  certain  that  there  were  no  steam-engines 
until  many  centuries  after  Adam.  The  beginnings 
of  this  invention  are  not  shrouded  in  so  much  mystery 
as  are  those  of  the  match  and  the  lamp  and  the 
forge.  In  giving  an 
account  of  the  steam- 
engine  we  can  men- 
tion names  and  give 
dates  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the 
story.  We  know 
what  the  first  steam- 
engine  was  like  and 
we  know  who  made 
it  and  when  and 
where  it  was  made. 
It  was  made  120  B. 
C.  by  Hero,  a  philosopher  of  Alexandria  in  Egypt. 
It  was  like  the  one  shown  in  Figure  2.  The  boy 
applies  the  fire  to  the  steam-tight  vessel  p  and  when 
steam  is  formed  it  passes  up  through  the  tube  o  and 
enters  the  globe  which  turns  easily  on  the  pivots. 
The  steam,  when  it  has  filled  the  globe,  rushes  out  of 
the  short  tubes  w  and  z  projecting  from  opposite 
sides  of  the  globe  and  bent  at  the  end  in  opposite 
directions.  As  it  rushes  out  of  the  tubes  the  steam 
55 


FIG.  I. —  FIRST  EXPERIMENTS  WITH 
STEAM. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

strikes  against  the  air  and  the  reaction  causes  the 
globe  to  revolve,  just  as  in  yards  we  sometimes  see 


FIG.  2. —  HERO  S  ENGINE,  I2O  B.  C. 


jets  of  water  causing  bent  tubes  to  revolve.     This 
was  Hero's  engine,  the  first  steam-engine  ever  made. 
Hero's  engine  was  used  only  as  a  toy  and  it  seems 
56 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

to  represent  all  the  ancients  knew  about  the  power  of 
steam  and  all  they  did  with  it.  It  is  not  strange  that 
they  did  not  know  more  for  there  is  no  general  rule 
by  which  discoveries  are  made.  Sometimes  even 
enlightened  peoples  have  for  centuries  remained  blind 
to  the  simplest  principles  of  nature.  The  Greeks  and 
Romans  with  all  their  culture  and  wisdom  were  igno- 
rant of  some  of  the  plainest  facts  of  science.  It 
is  a  little  strange,  however,  that  after  Hero's  dis- 
covery was  made  known,  men  did  not  profit  by  it. 
It  would  seem  that  eager  and  persistent  attempts 
would  have  been  made  at  once  to  have  steam  do  use- 
ful work,  as  well  as  furnish  amusement.  But  such 
was  not  the  case.  Hero's  countrymen  paid  but  little 
attention  to  his  invention  and  the  steam-engine  passed 
almost  completely  out  of  men's  minds  and  did  not 
again  attract  attention  for  nearly  seventeen  hundred 
years. 

About  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  Europe 
began  to  awaken  from  a  long  slumber  and  by  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century  its  eyes  were  wide  open. 
Everywhere  men  were  now  trying  to  learn  all  they 
could.  The  study  of  steam  was  taken  up  in  earnest 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  by  the 
middle  of  the  next  century  quite  a  little  had  been 
learned  of  its  nature  and  power.  In  1629  an  Italian, 
Branca  by  name,  described  in  a  book  a  steam-engine 
which  would  furnish  power  for  pounding  drugs  in 
a  mortar.  There  was  no  more  need  for  such  a 
machine  then  than  there  is  now  and  of  course  the 
57 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

inventor  aroused  no  interest  in  his  engine.  You 
can  easily  understand  how  Branca's  engine  (Fig. 
3)  works.  The  steam  causes  the  wheels  and  the 
cylinder  to  revolve.  As  the  cylinder  revolves,  a 
cleat  on  it  catches  a  cleat  on  the  pestle  and  lifts  the 
pestle  a  short  distance  and  then  lets  it  fall.  Here 
the  pestle  instead  of  being  raised  by  a  human  hand 
is  raised  by  the  force  of  steam.  This  engine  would 


FIG.  3. —  BRANCA'S  ENGINE,  1629. 

be  more  interesting  if  an  engine  had  actually  been 
made,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  Branca 
ever  made  the  engine  he  described.  We  owe  much 
to  him,  nevertheless,  for  suggesting  how  steam  might 
be  put  to  doing  useful  work. 

It  was  not  very  long  before  an  Englishman  put 
into  practice  what  the  Italian  had  only  suggested. 
Edward    Somerset,    the    Second   Marquis    of   Wor- 
cester, in   1663  built  a  steam-engine  that  raised  to 
58 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

the  height  of  forty  feet  four  large  buckets  of  water 
in  four  minutes  of  time.  This  was  the  first  useful 
work  ever  done  by  steam.  Figure  4  shows  the  con- 
struction of  Worcester's  engine. 

In  this  engine  there  was  one  improvement  over 
former  engines  which    | 
was    of   the    greatest    | 
importance :    there    ! 
was   one   vessel   in 
which  the  steam  was 
generated    and    an- 
other  in   which   the 
steam    did   its   work. 
The      steam-engine 
now  consisted  of  two 
great     divisions,     the 
boiler  and  the  engine 
proper. 

Worcester  spent  a 
large  part  of  his 
fortune  in  trying  to 
improve  the  steam- 
engine,  yet  he  re- 
ceived neither  profit 
nor  honor  as  a  re-  na  4- WORCESTER'S  ENGINE,  1663. 

ward.  He  died  poor  and  his  name  was  soon  forgot- 
ten. His  service  to  the  world  was  nevertheless  very 
great.  In  his  time  the  mines  of  England  had  been 
sunk  very  deep  into  the  earth;  and  the  deeper  they 
were  sunk  the  greater  was  the  difficulty  of  lifting  the 
59 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

water  out  of  them  and  keeping  them  dry.  The 
water  was  lifted  up  from  the  mines  by  means  of 
buckets  drawn  by  horses  or  oxen  (Fig.  5).  Some- 
times it  took  several  hundred  horses  to  keep  the  water 
out  of  a  single  mine.  It  was  Worcester's  object  to 
construct  an  engine  that  would  do  the  work  of  the 
horses.  The  engine  he  built  could  not  do  this,  yet  it 
furnished  the  idea  —  and  the  idea  is  often  the  most 


FIG.   5- — AN  ANCIENT  METHOD  OF  DRAWING  WATER. 

important  thing.  It  was  not  long  before  engines 
built  upon  Worcester's  plan  were  doing  useful  work 
at  the  mines.  At  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  steam-engine  had  been  put  to  work  and 
was  serving  man  in  England  and  throughout  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe. 

The  first  engines  were  not  safe.     Often  the  steam 
pressed  too  heavily  upon  the  sides  of  the  vessel  in 
which  it  was  compressed  and  there  were  explosions. 
60 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 


About  1680  Denis  Papin,  a  Frenchman,  invented  the 
safely  valve,  that  is  a  valve  that  opens  of  its  own 
accord  and  lets  out  steam  when  there  is  more  in  the 
vessel  than  ought  to  be  there.  About  ten  years  later 
Papin  gave  the  world  another  most  valuable  idea. 
In  Worcester's  engine  the  steam  in  the  steam  chest 
pressed  directly  on  the  water  that  was  to  be  forced 
up.  Papin  showed  a  better  way.  He  invented  the 
engine  shown  in  Figure  6.  In 
this  engine  a  small  quantity  of 
water  was  placed  in  the  bottom 
of  the  cylinder  A.  Fitting 
closely  in  the  cylinder  was  a  pis- 
ton B  such  as  Papin  had  seen 
used  in  ordinary  pumps.  We 
will  suppose  that  the  piston  is 
near  the  bottom  of  the  cylinder 
and  that  a  fire  is  built  under- 
neath. The  bottom  being 
made  of  very  thin  metal  the 
water  is  rapidly  converted  into  steam  and  thus  drives 
the  piston  up 'to  the  top  as  shown  in  the  figure. 
Here  a  latch  E  catches  the  piston-rod  H  and  holds 
the  piston  up  until  it  is  time  for  it  to  descend.  Now 
the  fire  is  removed  and  the  steam,  becoming  cold,  is 
condensed  and  a  vacuum  is  formed  below  the  piston. 
The  latch  E  now  releases  the  rod  H  and  the  piston 
is  driven  down  by  the  air  above  it,  pulling  with  it 
the  rope  L  which  passes  over  the  pulleys  TT.  As 
the  rope  descends  it  lifts  a  weight  W  or  does  other 
61 


FIG.    6. —  PAPIN'S    EN- 
GINE,  1690. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

useful  work.  As  the  inventor  of  the  piston  Papin 
ranks  among  the  greatest  of  those  whose  names  are 
connected  with  the  development  of  the  steam-engine. 
Our  story  has  now  brought  us  to  the  early  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Everywhere  men  were 
now  trying  to  make  the  most  of  the  ideas  of  Wor- 
cester and  Papin.  The  mines  were  growing  very 
deep.  As  the  water  in  them  was  getting  beyond 
control  something  extraordinary  had  to  be  done. 
Now  it  seems  that  whenever  the  world  is  in  need  of  an 
extraordinary  service  someone  is  found  to  render 
that  service.  The  man  who  built  the  engine  that 
was  needed  was  a  humble  blacksmith  of  Dart- 
mouth, England,  Thomas  Newcomen.  This  master 
mechanic  in  1705  constructed  the  best  steam-engine 
the  world  had  yet  seen.  We  must  study  Newcomen's 
engine  (Fig.  7)  very  carefully.  The  large  beam 
ii  moved  freely  up  and  down  on  the  pivot  "c.  One 
end  of  the  beam  was  connected  with  the  heavy  pump- 
rod  k  by  means  of  a  rope  or  chain  working  in  a 
groove  and  the  other  end  was  connected  with  the 
rod  r  in  the  same  way.  When  steam  from  the  boiler 
b  passed  through  the  valve  d  into  the  cylinder  (steam- 
chest)  a  it  raised  the  piston  s  and  with  it  the  piston- 
rod  r  thus  slackening  the  rope  and  allowing  the  op- 
posite end  of  the  beam  to  be  pulled  down  by  the 
weight  of  the  pump-rod  k.  As  soon  as  the  piston 
s  reached  the  top  of  the  cylinder  the  steam  was  shut 
off  by  means  of  the  valve  d  and  the  valve  /  was  turned 
and  a  jet  of  cold  water  from  the  tank  g  was  injected 
62 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 


FIG.    7. —  NEWCOMEN  S    ENGINE,     1705. 
63 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

into  the  cylinder  a  with  the  steam.  The  jet  of  cold 
water  condensed  the  steam  rapidly  —  steam  is 
always  condensed  rapidly  when  anything  cold  comes 
in  contact  with  it  —  and  the  water  formed  by  the 
condensation  escaped  through  the  pipe  p  into  the  tank 
o.  As  soon  as  the  steam  in  a  is  condensed,  a  vacuum 
was  formed  in  the  cylinder  and  the  atmosphere  above 
forced  the  piston  down  and  at  the  same  time  pulled 
the  pump-rod  k  up  and  lifted  water  from  the  well  or 
mine.  When  the  piston  reached  the  bottom  of 
the  cylinder  the  valve  d  was  opened  and  the  piston 
again  ascended.  Thus  the  beam  is  made  to  go  up 
and  down  and  the  pumping  goes  on.  Notice  that 
steam  pushes  the  piston  one  way  and  the  atmosphere 
pushes  it  back. 

In  Newcomen's  engine  the  valves  (/  and  d)  at  first 
were  opened  and  shut  (at  each  stroke  of  the  piston) 
by  an  attendant,  usually  a  boy.  In  1713  a  boy 
named  Humphrey  Potter,  in  order  to  get  some  time 
for  play,  by  means  of  strings  and  latches,  caused 
the  beam  in  its  motion  to  open  and  shut  the  valves 
without  human  aid.  We  must  not  despise  Humphrey 
because  his  purpose  was  to  gain  time  for  play.  The 
purpose  of  almost  all  inventions  is  to  save  human 
labor  so  that  men  may  have  more  time  for  amuse- 
ment and  rest.  Humphrey  Potter  ought  to  be  re- 
membered not  as  a  lazy  boy  but  as  a  great  in- 
ventor. His  strings  and  latches  improved  the  engine 
wonderfully  (Fig.  8).  Before  his  invention  the 
piston  made  only  six  or  eight  strokes  a  minute;  after 
64 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

the  valves  were  made  to  open  and  shut  by  the  motion 
of  the  beam,  it  made  fifteen  or  sixteen  strokes  a 
minute  and  the  engine  did  more  than  twice  as  much 
work. 

Newcomen's  engine   as  improved  by   Potter  and 
others  grew  rapidly  into  favor.     It  was  used  most 


FIG.  8. —  HUMPHREY   POTTER'S   LATCHES   AND  STRINGS. 

commonly  to  pump  water  out  of  the  mines  but  it 
was  put  to  other  uses.  In  and  about  London  it  was 
used  to  supply  water  to  large  houses  and  in  1752 
a  flour  mill  near  Bristol  was  driven  by  a  steam-engine. 
In  Holland  Newcomen's  engines  were  used  to  assist 
the  wind-mills  in  draining  lakes. 
65 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


66 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

For  nearly  seventy-five  years  engines  were  every- 
where built  after  the  Newcomen  pattern.  Improve- 
ments in  a  small  way  were  added  now  and  then  but 
no  very  important  change  was  made  until  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  steam-engine 
was  made  by  James  Watt  practically  what  it  is  to-day. 
This  great  inventor  spent  years  in  making  improve- 
ments upon  Newcomen's  engine  (Fig.  9)  and  when 
his  labors  were  finished  he  had  done  more  for  the 
steam-engine  than  any  man  who  ever  lived.  We  must 
try  to  learn  what  he  did.  We  can  learn  what  Watt 
did  by  studying  Figure  10.  Here  P  is  a  piston  work- 
ing in  a  cylinder  A  closed  at  both  ends.  By  the 
side  of  the  cylinder  is  a  valve-chest  C  into  which 
steam  passes  from  the  pipe  T.  Connecting  C  with 
the  cylinder  there  are  two  openings,  one  at  the  top 
of  the  cylinder  and  the  other  at  the  bottom.  The 
valve-chest  is  provided  with  valves  which  are  worked 
by  means  of  the  rod  F,  which  moves  up  and  down 
with  the  beam  B,  thanks  to  Humphrey  Potter  for  the 
hint.  The  valves  are  so  arranged  that  when  steam 
enters  the  opening  at  the  top  of  the  cylinder  it  is 
shut  off  from  the  opening  at  the  bottom,  and  when 
it  enters  the  opening  at  the  bottom  it  is  shut  off 
from  the  opening  at  the  top.  When  the  opening 
at  the  bottom  is  closed  the  steam  will  rush  in  at  the 
upper  opening  and  push  the  piston  downward;  when 
the  piston  has  nearly  reached  the  bottom  of  the  cylin- 
der the  upper  opening  will  be  closed  and  steam  will 
rush  in  at  the  bottom  of  the  steam  chest  and  push 
67 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

the  piston  upwards.  Here  was  one  of  the  things 
done  by  Watt  for  the  engine:  he  contrived  to  make 
the  steam  push  the  piston  down  as  well  as  up.  You 


FIG.    10. —  WATT  S    ENGINE. 


have  observed  that  in  Newcomen's  engine  steam  was 

used  only  to  push  the  piston  tip,  the  atmosphere  being 

relied  upon  to  push  it  down.     Thus  we  may  say  that 

68 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

Watt's  engine  was  the  first  real  steam-engine,  for  it 
was  the  first  that  was  worked  entirely  by  steam.  All 
engines  before  it  had  been  worked  partly  by  steam 
and  partly  by  air. 

Watt's  greatest  improvement  upon  the  steam- 
engine  is  yet  to  be  mentioned.  In  Newcomen's 
engine  when  the  cold  water  was  injected  into  the  cyl- 
inder it  cooled  the  piston  and  when  steam  was  let  into 
the  cylinder  again  a  part  of  it,  striking  the  cold  piston, 
was  condensed  before  it  had  time  to  do  any  work  and 
the  power  of  this  part  of  the  steam  was  lost.  Watt 
did  not  allow  the  piston  to  get  cold,  for  he  did  not 
inject  any  cold  water  into  the  cylinder.  In  his  engine 
as  soon  as  the  steam  did  its  work  it  was  carried  off 
through  the  pipe  M  to  the  vessel  N  and  there  con- 
densed by  means  of  a  jet  of  water  which  was  injected 
into  N  (called  the  condenser)  by  means  of  a  pump 
E  worked  by  the  motion  of  the  beam,  thanks  again 
to  Humphrey  Potter  for  the  idea.  This  condensa- 
tion of  the  steam  outside  of  the  cylinder  and  at  a 
distance  from  it  prevented  the  piston  (and  cylinder) 
from  getting  cold.  In  other  words,  in  the  Watt  en- 
gine when  steam  entered  the  cylinder  it  went  straight 
to  work  pushing  the  piston.  No  steam  was  lost  and 
no  power  was  lost  and  the  cost  of  running  the  en- 
gine was  greatly  reduced. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  Watt  invented  the  steam- 
engine —  no  one  can  claim  that  honor  —  yet  he  did 
so  much  to  make  it  better  that  he  well  deserves  the 
epitaph  which  is  inscribed  on  his  monument  in 
69 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

Westminster    Abbey.     This    inscription    is    as    fol- 
lows: 

NOT  TO  PERPETUATE  A  NAME 
WHICH  MUST  ENDURE  WHILE  THE  PEACEFUL  ARTS 

FLOURISH 
BUT  TO  SHEW 

THAT  MANKIND  HAVE  LEARNT  TO  HONOR  THOSE 
WHO  BEST  DESERVE  THEIR  GRATITUDE 

THE  KING 

HIS  MINISTERS  AND  MANY  OF  THE  NOBLES 

AND  COMMONERS  OF  THE  REALM 

RAISED  THIS  MONUMENT  TO 

JAMES  WATT 

WHO  DIRECTING  THE  FORCE  OF  AN  ORIGINAL 

GENIUS 

EARLY  EXERCISED  IN  PHILOSOPHIC  RESEARCH 
TO  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF 

THE  STEAM  ENGINE 
ENLARGED  THE  RESOURCES  OF  HIS  COUNTRY 

INCREASED  THE  POWER  OF  MAN 

AND  ROSE  TO  AN  EMINENT  PLACE 

AMONG  THE  MOST  ILLUSTRIOUS  FOLLOWERS  OF 

SCIENCE 
AND  THE  REAL  BENEFACTORS  OF  THE  WORLD 

BORN  AT  GREENOCH  MDCCXXXVI 
DIED  AT  HEATHFIELD  IN  STAFFORDSHIRE 
MDCCCXIX 

But  the  story  of  the  steam-engine  does  not  end 
with  Watt.     It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  en- 
gines of  Nero  and  of  Branca  the  steam  did  its  work 
by  reaction  or  by  impulse.     Now  soon  after  the  time 
70 


THE  STEAM-ENGINE 

of  Watt,  inventors  turned  their  thoughts  to  the  old 
engines  of  Nero  and  Branca  and  began  to  experiment 
with  engines  that  would  do  their  work  by  a  direct 
impact  of  steam.  After  nearly  a  century  of  experi- 
menting and  after  many  failures  there  was  at  last 
developed  an  engine  known  as  the  steam-turbine. 
In  this  engine  the  steam  does  its  work  by  impinging 
or  pushing  directly  upon  blades  (Fig.  n)  which 


FIG.    II. —  SHAFT   OF   A   LARGE   MARINE  TURBINE. 

Within  the  cylinder  are  thousands  of  blades  upon  which  the 
steam  acts  directly  in  the  turning  of  the  shaft.  In  the  largest 
turbines  there  are  as  many  as  50,000  blades. 

are  connected  with  the  shaft  which  is  to  be  turned, 
and  it  does  this  in  much  the  same  manner  that  we  saw 
the  steam  do  its  work  in  Branca's  engine.  One  of 
the  greatest  names  connected  with  the  steam  turbine 
is  that  of  Charles  Algernon  Parsons  of  England. 
In  1884  this  great  inventor  patented  a  steam-turbine 
which  proved  to  be  a  commercial  success  and  since 
that  date  the  steam-turbine  has  been  constantly  grow- 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

ing  in  favor.  So  great  has  been  its 'success  on  land 
and  on  sea  that  there  are  those  who  believe  that  the 
engine  invented  by  Watt  will  in  time  be  cast  aside 
and  that  its  place  will  be  taken  by  an  engine  which 
is  the  most  ancient  as  well  as  the  most  modern  of 
steam  motors. 


72 


THE  PLOW 

YOU  have  now  learned  the  history  of  those  inven- 
tions which  enabled  man  to  gain  a  mastery  over 
fire  and  to  use  it  for  his  comfort  and  convenience. 
We  shall  next  learn  the  history  of  an  invention 
which  gave  man  the  mastery  of  the  soil  and  enabled 
him  to  take  from  the  earth  priceless  treasures  of 
fruit  and  grain.  This  invention  was  the  plow. 

In  his  earliest  state  man  had  no  use  for  the  plow 
because  he  did  not  look  to  the  soil  as  a  place  from 
which  he  was  to  get  his  food.  The  first  men  were 
hunters  and  they  relied  upon  the  chase  for  their  food. 
They  roamed  from  place  to  place  in  pursuit  of 
their  prey  —  the  birds  and  beasts  of  the  forest  and  the 
fishes  of  the  stream.  They  did  not  remain  long 
enough  in  one  spot  to  sow  seed  and  to  reap  the  har- 
vest. Still  in  their  wanderings  they  found  wheat 
and  barley  growing  wild  and  they  ate  of  the  seeds 
of  these  plants  and  learned  that  the  little  grains  were 
good  for  food.  They  learned,  too,  that  if  the  seeds 
were  planted  in  a  soil  that  was  well  stirred  the  plants 
would  grow  better  than  they  would  if  the  seeds  were 
planted  in  hard  ground.  So  by  the  time  men  had 
grown  tired  of  wandering  about  and  were  ready  to 
settle  down  and  live  in  one  spot  they  had  learned  two 
73 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

important  facts:  they  knew  they  could  add  to  their 
food  supply  by  tilling  the  soil,  and  they  knew  that 
they  could  grow  better  crops  if  they  would  stir  the 
soil  before  planting  the  seed. 

For  the  stirring  of  the  soil  the  primitive  farmer 
doubtless  first  used  a  sharpened  stick  such  as  wander- 
ing tribes  carry  for  the  purpose  of  digging  up  eatable 


FIG.    1.  —  THE  KATTA  OR  DIGGING  STICK. 

roots,  knocking  fruits  down  from  trees,  and  breaking 

the  heads  of  enemies.     Such  a  stick  known  as  the 

Katta   (Fig.   i)    is  carried  by  certain  tribes  in  Aus- 

tralia, and  we  are  told  by  travelers  that  the  Kurubars 

of  Southern  India  use  a  sharp  stick  when  digging  up 

the  ground.     The  digging  stick  is  used  by  savages  in 

many    parts    of    the    world 

and  we   may   regard   it   as 

the    oldest    of    implements 

used  for  tilling  the  soil. 

The  first  plow  was  a 
forked  stick  or  a  limb  of  a 
tree  with  a  projecting  point 


PIG.   2.-THE   FUST 

plement  the  ground  was 

broken  not  by  digging  but  by  dragging  the  fork 
or  projecting  point  of  the  stick  through  the 
ground  and  forming  a  continuous  furrow.  In  this 

74 


THE  PLOW 

forked  stick  we  see  two  of  the  principal  parts 
of  the  modern  plow.  The  fork  of  the  stick  is  the 
share,  or  cutting  part  of  the  plow,  while  the  main  part 
of  the  stick  is  the  beam. 

An  improvement  upon  the  simple  forked  stick  is 
seen  in  Figure  3,  which  is  copied  from  an  ancient 
monument  in  Syria  (in  Asia  Minor) .  The  old  Syrian 
plow  consists  almost  wholly  of  the  natural  crooks  of 
a  branch  of  a  tree,  the  only  artificial  piece  being  the 


FIG.  3. —  THE  SYRIAN   PLOW  KNOWN  AS  JOBS  PLOW. 

brace  e  which  connects  the  share  and  the  beam  and 
holds  them  firm.  In  this  crooked  stick  we  have 
three  of  the  main  parts  of  the  modern  plow,  the 
beam  (a),  the  share  (c-b)  and  the  handle  *(d) .  The 
plow  in  this  form  requires  the  services  of  two  persons 
—  one  to  draw  the  plow  and  one  to  guide  it  and 
keep  it  in  the  ground.  It  is  said  that  it  was  with  a 
plow  of  this  kind  that  the  servants  of  Job  were 
plowing  when  they  were  driven  from  their  fields  by 
the  Sabeans. 

The  first  plows  were  drawn  by  the  strength  of  the 
75 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


FIG.  4. —  PLOW  DRAWN  BY  HU- 
MAN   LABOR. 


human  body  (Fig.  4).  Upon  a  very  old  monument 
of  ancient  Egypt,  the  country  which  seems  to  have 
been  the  first  home  of  the  plow,  we  have  a  plowing 
scene  which  shows  a  num- 
ber of  men  dragging  a 
plow  by  means  of  a  rope. 
But  primitive  man  was  not 
at  all  fond  of  labor  and  in 
the  course  of  time  he  tamed 
wild  bulls  and  horses  and 
made  them  draw  the  plows. 
So  upon  another  Egyptian 
monument  of  a  later  date  we  have  a  picture  of  a 
plowing  scene  in  which  animals  are  drawing  the  plow 
(Fig.  5).  In  this  Egyptian  plow  we  see  improve- 
ments upon  the  crooked  stick  of  the  Syrians.  The 
Egyptian  plow,  you  observe,  has  a  broader  share. 
It  will,  therefore,  make  a  wider  furrow  and  will  plow 
more  ground.  Moreover,  it  has  two  handles  instead 
of  one.  Taking  it 
altogether,  the 
Egyptian  plow  was 
a  fairly  good  imple- 
ment. 

Many  centuries 
passed  before  any 
real  improvement 
was  made  upon  the  old  Egyptian  plow.  If  there 
were  any  improvement  anywhere  it  was  among 
the  Romans.  We  read  in  Pliny  —  a  Roman  writer 


FIG.    5. —  THE    EGYPTIAN    1'LOW. 


THE  PLOW 


of  the  first  century  —  of  a  plow  that  had  wheels  to 

regulate  the  depth  of  the  plow  and  also  a  coulter, 

that      is,      a      knife 

fixed  in  front  of  the 

share    to    make    the 

first  cut  of  the  sod 

(Fig.  6).     But  such 

a   plow  was  not   in 

general    use     in 

Pliny's   time.     A 

thousand  years 


FJG.  6. —  PLINY'S  PLOW,  70  A.  D. 


later,  however,  the 
plow  with  wheels 
and  coulter  was  doubtless  in  common  use.  In  a  pic- 
ture taken  from  an  old  Saxon  print  we  see  (Fig.  7)  a 
plow  which  was  used  in  the  time  of  William  the  Con- 
queror (1066).  Here  the  plow  has  a  coulter  in- 
serted in  the  beam  and  there  are  two  wheels  to  regu- 


FIG.    7. —  AN   OLD    SAXON    PLOW, 

late  the  depth  to  which  the  plow  may  go.  This 
Saxon  plow  is  drawn  by  four  fine  oxen  and  it  is 
plainly  a  great  improvement  upon  the  old  Egyptian 
plow. 

77 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

But  improvements  in  the  plow  during  the  dark 
ages  came  very  slowly.  At  the  time  of  the  discovery 
of  America  the  plow  was  still  the  clumsy  wooden 
thing  it  was  five  hundred  years  before.  In  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  however,  when  im- 
provements were  being  made  in  so  many  things,  it 
was  natural  that  men  should  begin  to  think  of  try- 
ing to  improve  the  plow.  In  an  old  book  published 
in  1652  we  read  of  a  double  plow  —  one  which 
would  plow  two  furrows  at  one  time.  A  picture 


FIG.  8.—  A  DOUDLE  PLOW  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

(This  plow  was  proposed  but  was  never  made.) 

(Fig.  8)  of  the  double  plow  is  given  in  the  book  but 
there  is  no  proof  that  such  a  plow  was  ever  made  or 
ever  used.  The  world  did  not  as  yet  need  a  double 
plow,  although  the  time  was  to  come  when  it  would 
need  one. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  we 
begin  to  see  real  improvements  in  plow  making. 
About  this  time  Dutch  plowmakers  began  to  put 
mold-boards  on  their  plows.  The  purpose  of  the 
mold-board  is  to  lift  up  and  turn  over  the  slice  of 
sod  cut  by  the  share.  Without  the  mold-board  the 
plow  simply  runs  through  the  ground  and  stirs  if 

78 


THE  PLOW 

up.  With  the  mold-board  of  the  Dutch  plow  (Fig. 
9)  the  sod  was  turned  completely  over  and  the  weejs 
and  grass  were  covered  up.  This  was  the  kind  of 
plow  that  was  needed,  for  if  the  weeds  and  grass 
are  not  covered  up  the  best  effects  of  plowing  are 
lost.  So  the  mold-board  was  a  great  improvement 
and  its  invention  marks  a  great  event  in  the  history 
of  the  plow. 

The  Dutch  plow  was  taken  as  a  model  for  English 
plows  and,  in  fact,  for  the  plows  of  all  nations.     The 


FIG.   Q. —  THE  DUTCH    PLOW    SHOWING   THE    MOLD-BOAkD. 

mold-board  grew  rapidly  into  favor  and  by  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  found  on  plows  in 
all  civilized  nations.  But  the  plow  was  still  made 
mostly  of  wood  (Fig.  10)  and  it  was  still  an  awk- 
ward and  a  poorly  constructed  affair.  The  method 
of  making  plows  about  the  year  1800  has  been 
described  as  follows :  "  A  mold-board  was  hewed 
from  a  tree  with  the  grain  of  the  timber  running 
as  nearly  along  its  shape  as  it  could  well  be  obtained. 
On  to  this  mold-board,  to  prevent  its  wearing  out 
79 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

too  rapidly,  were  nailed  the  blade  of  an  old  hoe, 
thin  strips  of  iron,  or  worn  out  horseshoes  (Fig.  10). 
The  land  side  was  of  wood,  its  base  and  sides  shod 
with  thin  plates  of  iron.  The  share  was  of  iron  with 
a  hardened  steel  point.  The  coulter  was 
tolerably  well  made  of  iron.  The  beam  was 
usually  a  straight  stick.  The  handles,  like 
the  mold-board,  were  split  from  the  crooked 

trunk  of  a  tree 
or  as  often  cut 
from          its 
^==r  branches.     The    beam 
was  set  at  any  pitch  that 
fancy  might  dictate,  with 


FIG.    ia-  A   COLONIAL   FU>W. 


almost  at  right  angles  with  it,  thus  leaving  the  plow- 
man little  control  over  his  implement,  which  did  its 
work  in,  a  very  slow  and  most  imperfect  manner." 
But  about  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
world  was  beginning  to  need  a  plow  that  would  do 
its  work  rapidly  and  well.  Population  was  every- 
where increasing  and  it  was  necessary  to  till  more 
ground  than  had  ever  been  tilled  in  former  times. 
Especially  was  a  good  plow  needed  in  the  United 
States  where  there  were  vast  areas  of  new  ground  to 
be  broken.  And  it  was  in  the  United  States  that  the 
first  great  improvements  in  the  plow  were  made. 
Foremost  among  those  who  helped  to  make  the  plow 
a  better  implement  was  the  statesman,  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson. This  great  man  while  traveling  in  France 
80 


THE  PLOW 

in  1788  was  struck  by  the  clumsiness  of  the  plows 
used  in  that  country.  In  his  diary  he  wrote:  "  The 
awkward  figure  of  their  mold-board  leads  one  to 
consider  what  should  be  its  form."  So  Jefferson 
turned  his  attention  to  mold-boards.  He  saw  that 
the  mold-board  ought  to  be  so  shaped  that  it  would 
move  through  the  ground  and  turn  the  sod  with  the 
least  possible  resistance  and  he  planned  for  a  mold- 
board  of  this  kind.  By  1793  he  had  determined 


< 

FIG.    II. —  DANIEL  WEBSTER'S  PLOW. 

what  the  proper  form  of  a  mold-board  should  be 
and  had  in  actual  use  on  his  estate  in  Virginia  several 
plows  which  had  mold-boards  of  least  resistance. 
Mr.  Jefferson's  patterns  of  the  mold-board  have,  of 
course,  been  improved  upon,  but  he  has  the  honor 
of  having  invented  the  first  mold-board  that  was 
constructed  according  to  scientific  and  mathematical 
principles.1 

1  Daniel  Webster  was  another  great  statesman  who  turned 
his  attention  to  the  making  of  plows.  He  planned  a  plow 
(Fig.  n)  and  had  it  made  in  his  workshop  on  his  farm  at 
Marshfield.  When  the  plow  was  ready  for  use,  Webster  him- 
self was  the  first  man  to  take  hold  of  the  handles  and  try  it. 
The  plow  worked  well  and  the  great  man  is  said  to  have  been 

6  81 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

About  the  time  Jefferson  was  working  upon  the 
mold-board,  Charles  Newbold,  a  farmer  of  Bur- 
lington, New  Jersey,  was  also  doing  great  things 
for  the  improvement  of  the  plow.  We  have  seen 
that  the  plow  of  this  time  was  a  patch  work  of  wood 
and  iron.  Newbold  thought  the  plow  ought  to  be 
made  wholly  of  iron  and  about  1796  he  made  one 
of  cast  iron,  the  point,  share,  and  mold-board  all 


FIG.    12. —  JETHRO    WOOD'S    PLOW,    1819. 

being  cast  in  one  piece.  But  the  New  Jersey  farm- 
ers did  not  take  kindly  to  the  iron  plow.  They  said 
that  iron  poisoned  the  crops  and  caused  weeds  to 
grow  faster  than  ever.  So  Newbold  could  not  sell 
his  plows  and  he  was  compelled  to  give  up  the  busi- 
ness in  despair. 

But  soon  the  iron  plow  was  to  have  its  day.      In 
1819  Jethro  Wood  of  Scipio,  New  York,  took  out 

as  much  delighted  with  his  achievement  as  he  was  with  any  of 
his  triumphs  in  public  life  at  Washington. 
82 


THE  PLOW 

a  patent  for  a  plow  which  was  made  of  cast  iron  and 
which  combined  the  best  features  of  the  plow  as 
planned  by  Jefferson  and  by  Newbold.  In  Wood's 
plow  (Fig.  12)  the  several  parts  —  the  point,  share 
and  mold-board  —  were  so  fastened  together  that 
when  one  piece  wore  out  it  could  easily  be  replaced 
by  a  new  piece.  In  Newbold's  plow  when  one  part 
wore  out  the  whole  plow  was  rendered  useless. 
Wood's  plow  became  very  popular  and  by  1825  it 
was  rapidly  driving  out  the  half-wooden,  half-iron 
plows  of  the  olden  time.  Great  improvements  of 
course  have  been  made  upon  the  plow  since  1819,  but 
in  the  main  features  the  best  plows  of  to-day  closely 
resemble  the  implement  invented  by  Jethro  Wood. 
Since  our  greatness  as  a  nation  is  due  largely  to  the 
plow  all  honor  should  be  given  to  the  memory  of 
this  inventor.  "  No  citizen  of  the  United  States," 
said  William  H.  Seward,  "  has  conferred  greater 
benefits  on  his  country  than  Jethro  Wood." 


FIG.    13. —  THE  GANG   PLOW   DRAWN   BY    HORSES. 
83 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


*      - 


FIG.    14. —  PLOWING  BY   STEAM. 

The    plow    is    drawn    across    the    field    by    means    of    cables. 
Sometimes  a  traction  engine  moves  along  with  the  plow. 

But  the  plow  of  Jethro  Wood,  as  excellent  as  it 
was,  did  not  fully  meet  the  needs  of  the  western 
farmer.  The  sod  of  the  vast  prairies  could  not  be 
broken  fast  enough  with  a  plow  of  a  single  share. 
So  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
gang  plow,  a  hint  for  which  had  been  given  long  be- 
fore (p.  78)  was  invented,  and  as  this  new  plow 
moved  along  three  or  four  or  five  furrows  were 
turned  at  once.  At  first  the  gang  plow  was  drawn 
by  horses  (Fig.  13)  but  later  it  was  drawn  by  steam 
(Fig.  14). 

The  great  gang  plow  drawn  by  steam  marked  the 
last  step  in  the  development  of  the  plow.  The 
forked  stick  drawn  by  human  hands  and  making  its 
feeble  scratch  on  the  ground  had  grown  until  it  had 
become  a  mighty  machine  drawn  across  the  field  by 
an  unseen  force  and  leaving  in  its  wake  a  broad  belt 
of  deeply-plowed  and  well-broken  soil. 
84 


THE  REAPER 


AFTER  man  had  invented  his  rude  plow  and  had 
learned  how  to  till  the  soil  and  raise  the  grain, 
it  became  necessary  for  him  to  learn  how  to  harvest 
his  crop,  how  to  gather  the  growing  grain  from  the 
fields.  The  invention  of  the  plow,  therefore,  must 
have  soon  been  followed  by  the  invention  of  the 
reaper. 

The  first  grain  was  doubtless  cut  with  the  rude 
straight  knives  used  by  primitive  man.  In  time  it 
was  found  that 
if  the  knife 
were  bent  it 
would  cut  the 
grain  better.  So  the  first  form  of  the  reaper  was  a 
curved  or  bent  knife  known  as  the  sickle  or  reaping 
hook  (Fig.  i).  The  knife  was  fastened  at  one  end 
to  a  stick  which  served  as 
a  handle.  When  using 
the  sickle  the  harvester 
held  the  grain  in  one  hand 
and  cut  it  with  the  other. 
(Fig.  2). 

_          When    the    sickle    first 
THE  began    to    be    used    is    of 

85 


2. —  REAPING     WITH 
SICKLE. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

course  unknown.  Among  the  remains  of  the  "  stone 
age  "  (p.  39)  are  implements  of  flint  which  resemble 
the  sickle,  while  among  the  remains  of  the  so-called 
"  bronze  age  "  many  primitive  sickles  made  of  bronze 
have  been  found.  Nor  do  we  know  where  the  sickle 
was  first  used,  although  Egypt  seems  to  have  been 
the  first  home  of  the  sickle  just  as  it  was  the  first 
home  of  the  plow.  Upon  the  wall  of  a  building  of 
ancient  Thebes  is  a  picture  of  an  Egyptian  harvest 
scene.  Two  men  with  sickles  are  cutting  the  wheat. 
A  man  following  the  reapers  seems  to  be  gleaning, 
that  is,  picking  up  the  wheat  that  the  reapers  have 
cut.  Other  harvesters  are  carrying  the  grain  to  the 
threshing  place  where  it  is  tramped  out  by  the  slow 
feet  of  oxen.  A  primitive  sickle  such  as  was  used  by 
the  Egyptians  was  used  by  all  civilized  nations  in 
ancient  times,  by  the  Hebrews,  by  the  Greeks,  and 
by  the  Romans. 

The  first  improvement  upon  the  primitive  sickle 
was  made  by  the  Romans.  About  the  year  100  A. 
D.  the  Roman  farmers,  who  were  at  the  time  the 
best  farmers  in  the  world,  began  to  use  a  kind  of 
scythe  for  cutting  grass.  The  Roman  scythe  was 
simply  an  improved  form  of  the  sickle;  it  was  a 
broad,  heavy  blade  fastened  on  a  long  straight 
handle,  resembling  the  pruning  hook  of  to-day  (Fig. 
3).  The  scythe  was  swung  with  both  hands  and  it 
was  used  chiefly  for  cutting  grass. 

For  more  than  a  thousand  years  after  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Roman  scythe  agriculture  in  Europe  was 
86 


THE  REAPER 

everywhere  neglected  and  little  or  no  improvement 
was  made  in  farming  implements.  About  the  end  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  however,  improvements  in  the  form 
of  the  scythe  began  to  appear.  In  Flanders  farm- 
ers began  to  use  an  implement  known  as  the  Hain- 
ault  scythe  (Fig.  4).  This  scythe  had  a  fine  broad 
blade  and  a  curved  handle.  When  reaping  with  this 
scythe  the  reaper  with  his  left  hand  brought  the 


FIG.    3. —  AN  FIG.    4. —  THE    HAINAULT    03 

EARLY    SCYTHE.  FLEMISH   SCYTHE,   WITH    HOOK. 

stalks  of  grain  together  with  a  hook  and  with 
his  right  hand  he  swung  the  scythe  and  cut  the  grain. 
This  scythe  was  an  improvement  upon  the  sickle  but 
it  was  still  a  very  awkward  implement. 

The  Hainault  or  Flemish  scythe  was  followed  by 
the  cradle  scythe.  On  this  scythe  ( Fig.  5 )  there  were 
wooden  fingers  running  parallel  to  the  blade.  These 
fingers,  called  the  cradle,  caught  the  grain  as  it  was 
cut  and  helped  to  leave  it  in  a  bunch.  In  the  early 
cradle-scythe  the  fingers  were  few  in  number  and  they 
ran  along  the  blade  for  only  a  part  of  its  length, 
but  in  America  during  the  colonial  period  the  cradle 
8? 


FIG.   5- — EARLY  FORM   OF  THE  CRADLE  SCYTHE. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

was  improved 
by  lengthening 
the  fingers  and 
increasing  their 
number.  A  t 
the  time  of  the 
Revolution  the 
improved 
American 
c  r  a  d  1  e  was 
coming  into  use  and  by  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  it  was  driving  out  the  sickle. 

But  even  the  excellent  American  cradle-scythe  could 
not  meet  the  needs  of  the  American  farmer.  The 
cast  iron  plow  which  was  brought  into  use  in  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  (p.  82)  made 
it  possible  to  raise  fields  of  wheat  vastly  larger  than 
had  ever  been  raised  before.  But  it  was  of  no  use 
to  raise  great  fields 
of  grain  unless  the 
crop  could  be  prop- 
erly harvested. 
Wheat  must  be  cut 
just  when  it  is  ripe 
and  the  harvest  sea- 
son lasts  only  a  few 
days.  If  the  broad 
American  fi  e  1  d  s 
were  to  be  plowed 
and  planted  there  FIG.  6. —  THE  IMPROVED  CRADLE  SCYTHE. 


THE  REAPER 

would  have  to  be  a  reaping  machine  that  would 
cut  the  grain  faster  than  human  hands  could  cut  it 
with  the  scythe  (Fig.  6). 

So  about  the  year  1800  inventors  in  Europe  and  in 
America  took  up  the  task  of  inventing  a  new  kind 
of  reaper.  The  first  attempts  were  made  in  Eng- 
land where  population  was  increasing  very  fast  and 
where  large  quantities  of  grain  were  needed  to  feed 


FIG.   7. —  THE   FIRST   REAPING    MACHINE,   7<D   A.   D. 

the  people.  The  first  hints  for  a  reaper  were  from  a 
machine  which  was  used  in  Gaul  nearly  2,000  years 
ago.  Pliny,  who  described  for  us  a  wonderful  plow 
used  in  his  time  (p.  77),  also  describes  this  ancient 
reaper  of  the  Gauls.  It  consisted  of  a  large  hollow 
frame  mounted  on  two  wheels  (Fig.  7).  At  the 
front  of  the  frame  there  was  a  set  of  teeth  which 
caught  the  heads  of  grain  and  tore  them  off.  The 
heads  were  raked  into  the  box  by  an  attendant.  The 
machine  was  pushed  along  by  an  ox.  This  kind  of 
89 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


machine  was  doubtless  used  in  Europe  for  a  while  but 
it  was  not  a  success.  It  passed  out  of  use  and  for 
many  centuries  it  was  entirely  forgotten.  Still,  the 
first  English  reaping  machines  were  made  after  the 
plan  of  this  interesting  old  reaper  of  ancient  Gaul. 
The  most  remarkable  of  the  early  reapers  was  one 
invented  by  Henry  Ogle,  a  schoolmaster  of  Reming- 
ton, England.  In  1822  Ogle  constructed  a  model 
for  a  reaper  which  was  quite  different  from  any  that 
had  appeared  before  and  which  bore  a  close  re- 

P  semblance  to  the  im- 

proved reapers  of  a 
1  a  t  e  r  d  a  t  e  .  In 
Ogle's  reaper  (Fig. 
8)  the  horse  walked 
ahead  beside  the 
standing  grain,  just 
as  it  does  now,  and 
the  cutting  appara- 
tus was  at  the  right, 
just  as  it  is  now.  The  cutter  consisted  of  a 
frame  at  the  front  of  which  was  a  bar  of  iron 
armed  with  a  row  of  teeth  projecting  forward. 
Directly  under  the  teeth  lay  a  long  straight 
edged  knife  which  was  moved  to  and  fro  by  means 
of  a  crank  and  which  cut  the  grain  as  it  came 
between  the  teeth.  A  reel  pushed  the  grain  toward 
the  knife  and  there  was  a  platform  upon  which  the 
grain  when  cut  might  fall.  Ogle's  machine  did  not 
meet  with  much  success  yet  it  holds  a  very  high  place 
90 


FIG.   8. —  OGLE'S  REAPER,   1822. 


THE  REAPER 


in  the  history  of  reaping  machines,  for  it  had  nearly 
all  the  parts  of  a  modern  reaper. 

English  inventors  did  much  to  prepare  the  way  for 
a  good  reaping  machine  but  the  first  really  suc- 
cessful reaper,  the  first  reaper  that  actually  reaped, 
was  made  in  the  United  States.  In  the  summer  of 
1831,  Cyrus  McCormick,  a  young  blacksmith  living 
in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  in  Virginia,  made  a  trial 
of  a  reaper  which 
he  and  his  father 
had  invented  — 
how  much  they  had 
learned  from  Ogle 
we  do  not  know  — 
and  the  trial  was 
successful  (Fig. 
9).  With  two 
horses  he  cut  six 
acres  of  oats  in  an 
afternoon.  "  Such 
a  thing,"  says  Mr. 
Casson  in  his  life  of  McCormick,  "  at  the  time  was 
incredible.  It  was  equal  to  the  work  of  six  laborers 
with  scythes  or  twenty-four  peasants  with  sickles.  It 
was  as  marvelous  as  though  a  man  had  walked  down 
the  street  carrying  a  dray  horse  on  his  back." 

Although  McCormick  had  his  reaper  in  successful 
operation  by  1831  he  did  not  take  out  a  patent  for 
the  machine  until  1834.  One  year  before  this  (in 
Obed  Hussey,  a  sailor  living  in  Baltimore, 
91 


FIG.  p. —  THE  FIRST  MCCORMICK  REAPER. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

took  out  a  patent  for  a  reaper  that  was  successful 
and  that  was  in  many  respects  as  famous  a  machine 
as  McCormick's.  So  while  McCormick  was  the  first 
in  the  field  with  his  invention,  Hussey  was  the  first 
to  secure  a  patent.  The  ma- 
chines of  McCormick  and 
Hussey  were  very  much  alike : 
both  had  the  platform,  the 
iron  bar  armed  with  guards 
and  the  long  knife  moving  to 
and  fro.  The  most  remark- 

FIC.        10.— THE       KNIFE 

BLADE  CF  HUSSEY'S  able  feature  of  Hussey  s  ma- 
chine was  the  knife  which  con- 
sisted of  thin  triangular  plates  of  steel  sharpened  on 
two  edges  and  riveted  side  by  side  upon  a  flat  bar 
(Fig.  10).  The  saw-like  teeth  of  Hussey's  knife 
caught  the  wheat  between  the  guards  and  cut  it  bet- 
ter than  any  knife  that  had  as  yet  appeared.  Both 
the  McCormick  reapers  and  the  Hussey  reapers  were 
practical  and  successful  and  each  of  these  inventors 
performed  a  noble  part  in  giving  the  world  the 
reaper  it  needed. 

The  McCormick  and  the  Hussey  reapers  gave  new 
life  to  farming  in  the  United  States.  Especially  was 
the  reaper  a  blessing  to  the  Western  farmers.  In 
1844  McCormick  took  a  trip  through  the  West, 
passing  through  Ohio,  Michigan,  Illinois,  and  Iowa. 
As  he  passed  through  Illinois  he  saw  how  badly  the 
reaper  was  needed.  He  saw  great  fields  of  ripe 
wheat  thrown  open  to  be  devoured  by  hogs  and  cattle 
92 


THE  REAPER 


because  there  were  not  enough  laborers  to  harvest 
the  crops.  The  farmers  had  worked  day  and  night 
and  their  wives  and  children  had  worked  but  they 
could  not  harvest  the  grain;  they  had  raised  more 
than  the  scythe  and  sickle  could  cut.  McCormick 
saw  that  the  West  was  the  natural  home  for  the 
reaper  and  in  1847  he  moved  to  Chicago,  built  a 
factory,  and  began  to  make  reapers.  In  less  than  a 
year  he  had  orders  for  500  machines  and  before  ten 
years  had  passed  he 
had  sold  nearly 
25,000  reapers.  It 
was  these  reapers 
that  caused  the 
frontier  line  to 
move  westward  at 
the  rate  of  thirty 
miles  a  year. 

Improvements      KIU-  n- — REAPER  PROVIDED  WITH  SEAT 

.    .  FOR    THE    RAKER. 

upon    the    machines 

of  Hussey  and  McCormick  came  thick  and  fast. 
One  of  the  first  improvements  was  to  remove 
the  grain  from  the  platform  in  a  better  way. 
With  the  first  machines  a  man  followed  the 
reaper  (Fig.  9)  and  removed  the  grain  with  a 
rake.  Then  a  seat  was  provided  and  the  man 
sat  (Fig.  n)  on  the  reaper  and  raked  off  the  grain. 
Finally  the  self-raking  reaper  was  invented.  In  this 
machine,  as  it  appeared  in  its  completed  form  about 
1865,  the  reel  and  rake  were  combined.  The  reel 
93, 


'STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

consisted  of  a  number  of  revolving  arms  each  of 
which  carried  a  rake  (Fig.  12).  As  the  arms  re- 
volved they  not  only  moved  the  standing  grain  to- 
ward the  knife,  but  they  also  swept  the  platform  and 
raked  off  the  wheat  in  neat  bunches  ready  to  be  bound 
into  sheaves.  So  the  self-raking  reaper  saved  the 


FIG.    12  —  SELF-RAKING    REAPER. 

labor  of  the  man  who  raked  the  wheat  from  the  plat- 
form. 

Because  it  saved  the  labor  of  one  man  the  self-rak- 
ing reaper  was  for  a  time  the  king  of  reaping  ma- 
chines. But  it  did  not  remain  king  long,  for  soon 
there  came  into  the  harvest  fields  a  reaper  that  saved 
the  labor  of  several  men.  This  was  the  self-binder. 
With  the  older  machines,  as  the  grain  was  raked  off 
the  platform  it  was  gathered  and  bound  into  sheaves 
94 


THE  REAPER 

by  men  who  followed  the  reaper,  one  reaper  requir- 
ing the  services  of  three  or  four  or  five  human  bind- 
ers. With  the  self-binder  (Fig.  13)  the  grain  was 
gathered  into  sheaves  and  neatly  tied  without  the  aid 
of  human  hands.  At  first,  wire  was  used  in  bind- 
ing the  sheaves  but  by  1880  most  self-binders  were 


FIG.    13. —  A 


-BINDING   REAPER. 


using  twine.  So  the  self-binder  saved  the  labor  not 
only  of  the  man  who  raked  the  grain  from  the  plat- 
form but  it  saved  the  labor  of  all  the  binders  as  well. 
The  last  step  in  the  development  of  the  reaper  was 
taken  when  the  complete  harvester  was  invented. 
This  machine  cuts  the  standing  grain,  threshes  it, 
winnows1  it,  and  places  it  in  sacks  (Fig.  14).  As 

1  To  winnow  grain  is  to  separate  it  from  the  chaff  by  a  fanning 
process. 

95 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

this  giant  reaper  travels  over  the  field  one  sees  on 
one  side  the  cutting  bar  15  to  25  feet  in  length  slic- 
ing its  way  through  the  wheat,  while  on  the  other 


FIG.    14. —  A   COMBINED    HARVESTER   AND   THRESHER 

side  of  the  machine  streams  of  grain  run  into  sacks 
which,  as  fast  as  they  are  filled,  are  hauled  to  the 
barn  or  to  the  nearest  railway  station.  The  com- 
plete harvester  is  either  drawn  by  horses  —  30  or 
40  in  number  —  or  by  a  powerful  engine.  It  cuts 
and  threshes  100  acres  of  wheat  in  a  day  and  the 
cost  is  less  than  50  cents  an  acre.  It  does  as  much 
work  in  a  day  as  could  have  been  done  by  a  hundred 
men  before  the  days  of  McCormick.  Of  all  the 
wonderful  machines  used  by  farmers  the  most  won- 
derful is  the  complete  harvester,  the  latest  and  the 
greatest  of  reapers. 


THE    MILL 


FIG.    I.— THE   FIRST    MILL. 


THE  first  mill  was  a  hole  made  in  a  stationary 
rock  (Fig.  i).     The  grain  was  placed  in  the 

hole  and  crushed  with  a  stone  held  in  the  hand.     On 

Centre   street    in 

Trenton,   New   Jer- 
sey, not  many  years 

ago    one     of    these 

primitive  mills  could 

still     be     seen     and 

there   are   evidences 

that  such  mills  once 

existed  in   all   parts 

of   the   world.     In    those    places   where   the    earth 

did    not    supply    the    stationary    rock,    stones    were 

brought  from  afar  and  hollowed  out  into  cup-like 
form  and  in  these  the  grind- 
ing was  done. 

The  mill  which  consisted 
of  a  hole  in  a  rock  and  a 
stone  in  the  hands  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  "  knocking- 
stane  "  and  mallet  ( Fig.  2 ) . 
The  "  knocking-stane  "  was 
a  mortar,  or  cup-shaped 
97 


FIG. 


2. —  THE    KNOCKING 

STANE. 
7 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

vessel  made  of  stone;  the  mallet  was  usually  made  of 
wood.  The  grain  was  placed  in  the  mortar  and 
struck  repeatedly  with  the  mallet,  the  beating  being 
kept  up  until  a  coarse  flour  was  produced.  This  is 
an  exceedingly  rude  method  of  crushing  grain,  yet 
this  is  the  way  the  people  in  some  parts  of  Scotland 
grind  their  barley  at  the  present  time. 

At  a  very  early 
date  the  "  knocking- 
s  t  a  n  e  "  was  laid 
aside  for  the  mortar 
and  pestle  (Fig.  3) 
almost  everywhere. 
In  this  mill  the  grain 
instead  of  being 
struck  with  a  ham- 
mer was  pounded 
with  a  pestle.  The 
bottom  of  the  pestle 
was  frequently  cov- 
ered with  iron  in 
which  grooves  were 
cut.  As  the  man 
pounded  he  found  that  when  he  gave  the  pestle  a 
twirling  or  rotary  motion  as  it  fell  it  ground  the 
grain  much  faster.  We  may  be  sure  that  after  this 
was  learned  the  twirling  motion  was  always  given. 

The  mortar  and  pestle  were  followed  by  the  slab- 
mill  (Fig.  4) .  Here  the  grain  was  ground  by  being 
rubbed  between  two  stones.  Dr.  Livingstone,  the 


FIG.  3. —  MORTAR  AND  PESTLE  MILL. 


THE  MILL 

great  African  explorer,  gives  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  a  slab-mill  which  he  saw  in  operation  in  South 
Africa.  "The  operator  kneeling  grasps  the  upper 


FIG.    4. —  THE    SLAB-MILL. 

millstone  with  both  hands  and  works  it  backwards 
and  forwards  in  the  hollow  of  the  lower  millstone, 
in  the  same  way  that  a  baker  works  his  dough. 
The  weight  of  the  person  is  brought  to  bear  on  the 
movable  stone  and  while  it  is  pressed  and  pushed 
forward  and  backward  one  hand  supplies  every  now 
and  then  a  little  grain  to  be  bruised  and  ground." 
As  we  have  seen,  the  primitive  miller  gradually 
learned  that  the  pestle  did  better  work  when  it  fell 
with  a  twirling  motion.  This  little  bit  of  experience 
led  to  important  results  in  the  development  of  the 
mill.  If  the  grinding  were  done  better  with  a  twirl- 
99 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

ing  motion,  why  not  have  as  much  of  the  twirling  mo- 
tion as  possible  ?  Why  not  make  the  upper  stone  go 
round  and  round?  This  was  what  was  done.  The 
upper  stone  was  caused  to  turn  round  and  round. 
The  wheel-mill,  the  mill  of  the  upper  and  nether  mill- 
stone (Fig.  5),  was  invented.  When  and  where  it 
was  invented  we  cannot  tell  for  it  was  in  use  among  all 

civilized  peoples 
before  history 
began  to  be  writ- 
ten. There  were 
many  kinds  of 
wheel  -  mills 
among  the  na- 
tions of  an- 
tiquity and  in 
principle  they 
were  all  alike 

FIG.   5. —  THE  UPPER  AND  NETHER   MILL-  jn       COttStrUCtion 

STONE. 

How  they  work- 
ed may,  be  learned  by  studying  Figure  5  which  rep- 
resents a  mill  used  in  ancient  India.  The  upper 
stone  is  placed  upon  the  pivot  projecting  from  the 
center  of  the  lower  (nether)  stone,  and  caused  to 
revolve  by  means  of  the  handle.  The  grain  when 
placed  in  the  hollow  at  the  center  of  the  upper  stone 
(Fig.  5)  works  its  way  down  between  the  stones  and 
comes  out  at  the  circumference  ground,  bran  and 
flour  together.  The  mill  was  fed  with  grain  by  the 
operator.  The  first  hopper  was  a  human  hand. 
100 


THE  MILL 


FIG.    6. —  AN    ANCIENT    JEWISH    MILL. 


FIG.  7- —  AN  OLD  ROMAN   MILL. 
IOI 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


We  have  here  several  pictures  of  ancient  mills. 
Figure  6  is  an  ancient  Jewish  mill.  As  we  look  at  it 
ijgjjjjjjjjjjjj^jjj^j^  we  may  recall  the 

words,  "Two 
women  shall  be 
grinding  at  a  mill, 
the  one  shall  b  e 
taken,  and  the  other 
left."  l  Figure  7  is 
an  old  Roman  mill 
,fe  bearing  a  strong  re- 

semblance to  the 
coffee  mill  that  is 
used  in  our  kitchens. 


FIG.     8. —  A     SCOTTISH     QUERN. 


Figure  8  is  a  Scot- 
tish quern,  a  mill 
that  may  still  be 
found  in  use,  it  is 
said,  in  some  parts 
of  Scotland.  Figure 
9  is  an  old  flour  mill 
dug  from  the  ruins 
of  the  city  of  Pom- 
peii which  was  de- 
stroyed by  an  erup- 
tion in  the  year  79 
A.  D.  Figure  i  o 
shows  the  construc- 


FIG.  9. —  POMPEIAN  FLOUR  MILL,  79  A.  D. 


1  Matthew  xxiv,  41. 
was  done  by  women. 


In  ancient  times  nearly  all  the  grinding 


IO2 


THE  MILL 


tion   of  this  interesting  mill.     The  upper    (outer) 
stone  is  shaped  like  an  hour-glass,  the  upper  half  of 
which  serves  as  a  hopper;  the  lower  half  turns  upon 
the  cone-shaped  low- 
er   stone    and    does 
the    grinding.     The 
mill  was  operated  by 
the   projecting   han- 
dles,   the    operators 
walking   round   and 
round    the    mill. 
Sometimes     it     was 
turned     by     human 
power,  sometimes  by 
horses  or  oxen. 

The  Pompeian 
mill  shows  that  as 
early  as  the  first 
century  the  Romans 
ground  their  grain 
by  animal  power. 

Indeed  about  this  time  a  still  greater  change  was  made 
in  the  method  of  grinding  grain.  When  Julius  Cassar 
flourished  (50  B.  c.)  men  began  to  harness  the 
power  of  running  water  and  make  it  turn  their 
mills  (Fig.  u).  From  Figure  12  we  may  easily 
learn  how  this  was  done.  The  running  water  turns 
the  wheel  and  in  doing  so  turns  the  upper  mill- 
stone. A  hopper  is  suspended  from  the  roof  by 
ropes.  Through  this  the  grain  passes  into  the  mill. 
103 


FIG.     10. —  SHOWING    THE    INTERIOR    OF 
POMl'EIAN    MILL. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


FIG.    II. —  THE  FIRST  WATER-MILL,   5O  B. 


FIG.    12. —  SHOWING  THE   INTERIOR   OF   THE  FIRST 
WATER-MILL. 


I04 


THE  MILL 

Here  was  a  great  saving  in  human  labor  and  a 
great  advancement  in  mill  making.  A  Roman  writer 
of  Caesar's  time  appreciating  how  great  a  blessing 
was  the  invention  of  the  water-mill  exclaimed : 

Ye  maids  who  toiled  so  faithful  at  the  mill 

Now  cease  from  work  and  from  these  toils  be  still ; 

Sleep  now  till  dawn  and  let  the  birds  with  glee 

Sing  to  the  ruddy  morn,  on  bush  and  tree; 

For  what  your  hands  performed  so  long,  so  true, 

Ceres  l  has  charged  the  water-nymphs  to  do ; 

They  come,  the  limpid  sisters,  to  her  call, 

And  on  the  wheel  with  dashing  fury  fall ; 

Impel  the  axle  with  a  whirling  sound 

And  make  the  massive  millstone  reel  around 

And  bring  the  floury  heap  luxuriant  to  the  ground. 

Nothing  can  be  simpler  than  the  water-mill  de- 
scribed above;  it  was  the  old  mill  of  the  upper  and 
nether  millstones,  the  old  hand  mill  turned  by  water. 
That  was  all.  Yet,  as  simple  as  it  was,  many  cen- 
turies passed  after  its  invention  before  a  new  princi- 
ple in  flour  making  was  discovered.  There  were  in- 
ventions for  lowering  and  raising  the  stone  so  as  to 
grind  finer  or  coarser  as  might  be  desired,  and  there 
were  improvements  in  the  kind  of  water  wheels  em- 
ployed, and  better  methods  of  sifting  the  flour  from 
the  bran  were  discovered  from  time  to  time,  but  the 
water-mill  invented  in  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  re- 
mained practically  unchanged  until  the  early  part  of 

1  Ceres  was  the  goddess  of  grain. 
105 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

the  nineteenth   century,   when   the  last   step   in   the 

development  of  the  mill  was  taken.1 

About  1810  millers  in  Austria,  more  particularly 

those  in  Vienna,  began  to  grind  their  grain  by  passing 

it  between  two  horizontal  rollers  (Fig.  13).  The 
rollers  were  spirally  groov- 
ed and  turned  toward  each 
other.  There  was  a  wide 
difference  between  this  proc- 
ess and  the  one  to  which  the 
world  was  accustomed,  yet 
the  new  method  was  found 
to  be  better  than  the  old  one. 

FIG.    13.— AN  EARLY  FLOUR     Austrian  flour  and  Austrian 

ROLLER-MILL. 

bread  became  famous.     1  he 

delicious  Vienna  bread  on  our  tables  of  course  has 
never  seen  Vienna.  It  is  called  "  Vienna  bread  " 
because  it  is  made  out  of  a  kind  of  flour  which 
was  first  ground  in  the  Austrian  capital.  The 
Austrian  way  of  grinding  grew  rapidly  into  favor 
among  millers  everywhere.  In  the  United  States 
where  there  was  so  much  wheat  to  be  ground  the 
roller  process  was  taken  up  eagerly  and  improved 
upon  as  only  Americans  know  how  to  improve  upon 
an  idea.  In  the  flour  mills  of  the  West  the  grain 
was  soon  passing  through  a  series  of  rollers.  By 
the  first  pair  of  rollers  the  grain  was  simply  cracked 

1  In  the  thirteenth  century  wind-power  began  to  be  used  for 
turning  mills,  and  in  some  countries  windmills  were  as  common 
as  water-mills. 

106 


THE  MILL 

into  pieces  somewhat  coarse.  Then  after  being 
bolted  (sifted)  it  was  passed  between  a  second  pair  of 
rollers  and  reduced  to  a  greater  fineness.  Then  it 
was  bolted  again  and  passed  between  a  third  pair  of 


FIG.     14. —  A    MODERN    FLOUR    ROLLER-MILL. 

rollers.  The  rolling  and  sifting  continued  until  a 
practically  pure  flour  was  obtained.  A  pure  flour 
is  the  modern  miller's  ideal.  He  wants  a  branless 
flour  and  a  flourless  bran.  The  old  stone  mill  could 
not  grind  this  kind  of  flour.  Before  the  roller  mill 
107 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

appeared  there  was   always   bran   in  the   flour   and 
flour  in  the  bran. 

The  invention  of  the  flour  roller-mill  (Fig.  14) 
is  the  last  step  in  the  development  of  the  mill.  The 
roller  process  has  almost  entirely  driven  out  all  other 
processes.  Now  and  then  we  see  by  the  roadside 
an  old  fashioned  mill  with  the  upper  and  nether 
stone,  but  we  seldom  see  one  that  is  prosperous 
and  thriving.  Millers,  like  everybody  else  in  these 
days,  do  business  on  a  large  scale  and  to  make  flour 
on  a  large  scale  they  must  use  the  roller-mill.  Thus 
the  hole  in  the  rock  in  which  a  handful  of  grain  was 
laboriously  crushed  has,  through  long  ages  of  growth, 
become  the  great  factory  in  which  thousands  of  bar- 
rels of  flour  are  made  in  a  day. 


108 


THE    LOOM 

HAVE  you  ever  seen  a  loom  ?  It  would  not  be  a 
wonder  if  you  have  not.  In  these  days  the 
average  person  seldom  sees  one.  Everyone  knows  in 
a  vague  sort  of  way  that  clothes  and  carpets  are  made 
of  wool  or  silk  or  cotton,  as  the  case  may  be,  and 
that  they  are  woven  upon  an  instrument  called  a  loom. 
This  is  about  as  much  as  we  usually  know  about  the 
clothes  we  wear  or  the  carpets  we  walk  upon.  We 
buy  these  things  from  the  store  and  that  is  all  there 
is  to  it.  In  the  olden  times,  and  not  so  very  long 
ago  either,  everybody  knew  something  about  weaving, 
at  least  every  girl  and  woman  knew  something  of 
the  art,  and  a  loom  was  as  familiar  an  object  in  the 
household  then  as  a  sewing  machine  is  now. 

Matrons  and  maidens  sat  in  snow-white  caps  and  in  kirtles 
Scarlet  and  blue  and  green,  with  distaff  spinning  the  golden 
Flax  for  the  gossiping  loom,  whose  noisy  shuttle  within  doors 
Mingled  their  sounds  with  the  whir  of  the  wheels  and  the 
songs  of  the  maidens. 

This  picture  of  home  life  in  Acadia  two  hundred 
years  ago  would  have  served  as  a  picture  of  home 
life  almost  everywhere  in  the  civilized  world.  From 
the  beginning  of  history  until  modern  times  most  of 
109 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


the    weaving    was    done    by    the    women    in    the 
home. 

The  earliest  practical  weaver  on  record  is  the  spider 
and  it  may  be  that  man  learned  his  first  lesson  in 
weaving  from  this  skill- 
ed little  workman  (Fig. 
i )  ;  or  the  beautiful 
nest  of  the  weaver-bird 
may  have  given  to  hu- 
man beings  the  first 
hints  in  the  weaving 
art.  Whoever  may 
have  been  his  teacher, 
it  is  certain  that  man 
learned  how  to  weave 
in  the  earliest  stages  of 
existence.  It  is  thought 
that  his  first  effort  in  this  direction  consisted  in 
making  cages  for  animals  and  wiers  (traps)  for 
catching  fish  (Fig.  2)  by  interlacing  vines  or  canes 
or  slender  boughs.  The  next  step  was  taken  when 
women  began  to  make  baskets  and  cradles  and  mats 
by  interlacing  long  slender  strips  of  wood  (Fig.  3). 
Basket  weaving  led  to  cloth  weaving,  and  this 
led  to  the  loom.  In  Figure  4  we  see  the  simplest 
and  oldest  form  of  the  loom.  It  consisted  of  a  single 
stick  (yarn  beam)  of  wood  about  four  feet  long. 
This  was  the  first  form  of  the  loom  —  just  a  straight 
stick  of  wood  and  nothing  more.  From  the  stick  the 
threads  which  run  lengthwise  in  the  cloth  were  sus- 
no 


I. —  THE     FIRST     LESSON 
WEAVING. 


THE  LOOM 


FIG.  2. —  A   \V1ER  TRAP  OK  T11E  VIRGINIA  INDIANS 


,\Hn- 


FIG.    3 — PRIMITIVE    BASKET     MAKIN 
II  I 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

pended.  These  threads  are  known  as  the  warp. 
The  threads  which  run  breadthwise  in  the  cloth  are 
known  as  the  weft,  or  woof.  As  the  woman's  deft 


FIG.    4. —  THE   PRIMITIVE  LOOM. 

fingers  pass  along  with  the  weft  she  carries  the  thread 
over  the  first  warp  thread,  under  the  second,  over 
the  third,  under  the  fourth,  and  so  on.  Here  we 
have  not  only  the  simplest  form  of  the  loom  but  the 
simplest  kind  of  cloth. 

In  the  loom  worked  by  the  Pueblo  woman  (Fig.  5 ) 
a  new  piece  appears.  This  is  the  frame  through 
which  the  threads  of  the  warp  pass  and  which  the 
woman  is  holding  in  her  right  hand.  The  frame 
is  called  a  heald,  or  heddle  (Fig.  6).  The  heddle  is 
of  the  greatest  importance  in  the  construction  of  the 

112 


THE  LOOM 


loom  and  it  is  well  worth  while  to  understand  what 
it  does.  In  the  loom  operated  by  the  Chilcoot  woman 
(Fig.  4)  you  noticed  that  the  weaver  passed  the  weft 
thread  above  and  below  the  alternate  threads  of  the 
warp.  This  required  a  separate  movement  for  every 
thread  of  the  warp;  if  there  were  a  hundred  threads 
a  hundred  movements  were  required  to  pass  the  weft 
across  once.  Now  the  heddle  used  by  the  Pueblo 
woman  separated  the  fifty  warp  threads  that  were 
to  pass  above  the  weft  thread  from  the  fifty  that 
were  to  pass  below  it,  making  an  opening  called  a 
shed.  When  the  shed  was  made  the  weft  thread 
could  be  passed  across  at  one  movement.  One  move- 
ment instead  of  a  hundred!  How  was  this  accom- 
plished? Fifty  alternate  warp  threads  were  passed 
through  the  holes  in  the  bars  of  the  heddle 
frame,  one  thread  through  each  hole;  the  other 
fifty  alternate  threads  passed  between  the  bars 
113 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

of  the  heddle  frame.  Now  suppose  the  entire 
warp  of  a  hundred  threads  is  stretched  tight  and 
firm  between  the  woman's  body  and  the  yarn 
beam.  With  her  right  hand  she  raises  the  heddle 
and  thus  lifts  the  fifty  threads  which  pass  through  the 
holes  in  the  bars,  while  the  other  fifty  threads  remain 
unmoved.  This  movement  makes  the  passage  or 


T\ 


FIG.    6. —  THE    HEDDLE. 

shed  through  which  she  passes  the  weft  with  the  left 
hand.  After  beating  the  weft  thread  close  to  the 
cloth  either  with  the  fingers  or  with  a  sword-like 
stick,  she  lowers  the  heddle  with  its  fifty  threads,  the 
other  fifty  still  remain  fixed  and  unmoved.  Another 
shed  is  formed  and  the  weft  is  passed  through  again. 
Thus  with  the  raising  and  lowering  of  the  heddle  the 
weft  is  passed  backward  and  forward  and  the  weav- 
114 


THE  LOOM 


ing  goes  on  quite  rapidly.     If  you  care  to  do  so  you 

can  make  a  Pueblo  loom  and  can  weave  a  belt  on  it. 

In  the  old  African  loom  represented  in  Fig.  7  we 

find     several      i  m  -  

provements    upon 

the     loom     of    the 

Pueblo  woman.      In 

the  first  place,  it  has 

two  heddles  instead 

of  one.     These  are 

operated  by  the  feet, 

leaving     the     hands 

free     to     do     other 

work.   In  the  second 

place,     the    wooden 

frame      which     the 

weaver  holds  in  his 

right    hand    is    not 

t  o   be   seen    in   the 

Pueblo  loom.     This 

frame  called  the  batten,  or  lathe,  contains  the  reed, 

which   is   a   series   of  slats   or  bars  between  which 

the  threads  of  the  warp  pass  after  they  leave  the 

heddle.     When   the   weaver   has    thrown    the   weft 

through  the  shed  he  brings  the  batten  down  hard  and 

the  reed  drives  the  last  weft  thread  close  to  the 

woven  part  of  the  cloth.     The  reed  takes  the  place 

of  the  sword-like  stick  used  by  the  Pueblo  woman. 

Last  and  most  important :  in  the  African's  left  hand 

is  the  shuttle,  or  little  car  —  weaver's  ship,  the  Ger- 


FIG.   7. —  AN    O 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

mans     call     it  —  which     carries     the     weft     across 
(Fig.  8). 

The  loom  described  above  seems  to  be  clumsy  and 
rude  when  compared  with  a  loom  of  the  present  day, 
yet  it  is  really  the  kind  of  loom  which  was  used  by 


FIG.   8. —  A    PRIMITIVE   SHUTTLE. 

nearly  all  civilized  people  from  the  dawn  of  their  civ- 
ilization to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It 
is  the  loom  of  history  and  poetry  and  song.  Upon  a 
loom  of  this  kind  was  woven  Joseph's  coat  with  its 
many  colors  and  the  garment  which  the  fair  Penelope 
made  when  she  deceived  her  suitors.  Of  course  as 
the  centuries  passed  the  parts  of  the  loom  were  better 
made  and  weavers  became  more  skilful.  In  Figure  9 
we  have  the  loom  as  it  appeared  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. If  we  inspect  it  closely  we  shall  find  it  to  be 
merely  the  old  African  loom  mounted  on  stout  up- 
right timbers  instead  of  being  mounted  on  a  tripod 
made  of  poles.  With  her  feet  the  weaver  works  the 
heddle,  with  her  right  hand  she  throws  the  shuttle, 
with  her  left  she  draws  toward  her  the  swinging 
batten  and  drives  the  weft  home  with  the  reed. 

The  year  1733  is  a  most  important  date  in  the 
development  of  the  loom  for  in  that  year  John  Kay, 
a  practical  loommaker  of  Lancashire,  England,  in- 
vented the  flying  shuttle  and  thus  did  more  for  the 
116 


THE  LOOM 

loom  than  any  man  whom  we  can  distinguish  by 
name.  To  appreciate  the  great  service  of  Kay  we 
must  recall  how  the  shuttle  was  operated  before  his 
time.  You  remember  it  was  thrown  through  the 


FIG.    9. —  A    LOOM    OF    THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY. 

shed  by  one  of  the  weaver's  hands  and  caught  and 
returned  by  the  other  hand.  Sometimes  it  was 
caught  and  returned  by  a  boy.  This  was  at  best  a 
slow  process  and  unless  the  weaver  had  an  assistant 
117 


'  STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

to  return  the  shuttle  only  narrow  pieces  could  be 
woven.  The  common  width  of  cloth,  three-fourths 
of  a  yard,  had  its  origin  in  necessity.  The  weav- 
er's arms  were  not  long  enough  to  weave  a  wider 
piece.  "  The  essence  of  Kay's  invention  was  that 
the  shuttle  was  thrown  from  side  to  side  by  a  me- 
chanical device  instead  of  being  passed  from  hand 
to  hand.  One  hand  only  was  required  for  the  shuttle 
while  the  other  was  left  free  to  beat  up  the  cloth 


FIG.    IO. —  KAY  S    FLYING    SHUTTLE. 

(with  the  batten)  after  each  throw,  and  the  shuttle 
would  fly  across  wide  cloth  as  well  as  narrow." 
You  will  be  able  to  understand  Kay's  invention  by 
studying  Figure  10  which  shows  how  the  flying  shuttle 
worked.  G  is  a  groove  (shuttle-race)  on  which  the 
shuttle  runs  as  it  crosses  through  the  shed  leaving 
its  thread  behind  it.  /  and  /  are  boxes  which  the 
shuttle  (Fig.  n)  enters  at  the  end  of  the  journey. 
In  each  box  is  a  driver  K  sliding  freely  on  the 
polished  rod  F.  The  weaver  with  his  right  hand 
118 


THE  LOOM 

pulls  the  handle  H  and  K  drives  the  shuttle  to  the 
opposite  side.  With  his  left  hand  he  works  the 
reed,  with  his  feet  he  works  the  heddle. 

The  profits  of  Kay's  invention  were  stolen,  his 
house  was  destroyed  by  a  mob  and  he  himself  was 
driven  to  a  foreign  country  where  he  died  in  poverty. 
Yet  he  deserves  high  rank  among  the  benefactors 
of  mankind,  for  the  flying  shuttle  doubled  the  power 
of  the  loom  and  improved  the  quality  of  the  cloth 


o 


FIG.   II.  —  A   MODERN   SHUTTLE. 


woven.  Kay's  invention  was  the  first  step  in  a  great 
industrial  revolution.  The  increased  power  of  the 
loom  called  for  more  yarn  than  the  old  spinning 
wheel  could  supply.  Hargreaves  and  Arkwright  set 
their  wits  to  work  and  made  their  wonderful  spin- 
ning machine,  and  the  demands  of  the  loom  were 
supplied.  So  great  was  the  supply  of  yarn  that  the 
hand  loom  was  behind  with  its  work.  Then  in  order 
to  keep  up  with  the  spinning  machine  the  power- 
loom  was  invented.  Heddle  and  batten  and  shuttle 
were  now  driven  by  a  force  of  nature  and  all  the 
weaver  had  to  do  was  to  keep  the  shuttle  filled  with 
thread  and  see  that  his  loom  worked  properly.  At 
first  the  water-wheel  was  used  to  drive  the  power- 
loom  but  later  the  steam-engine  was  made  to  do  this 
119 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

work.  All  this  was  changing  the  face  of  the  civ- 
ilized world.  Hitherto  weavers  and  spinners  had 
worked  for  themselves  in  their  homes  or  in  their  own 
shops;  now  they  were  gathered  in  large  factories 
where  they  worked  as  wage  earners  for  an  employer. 
Hitherto  industry  had  been  carried  on  in  small  vil- 
lages; the  great  factories  drew  the  people  to  large 
industrial  centers  and  the  era  of  crowded  cities  be- 
gan. 

Following  the  invention  of  the  power-loom  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  came  the  in- 
vention of  Joseph  Jacquard  of  Lyons,  France.  This 
very  ingenious  man  in  1801  invented  a  substitute  for 
the  heddle.  We  cannot  readily  understand  the 
workings  of  Jacquard's  wonderful  "  attachment,"  as 
his  substitute  for  the  heddle  is  called,  but  we  ought 
to  know  what  the  great  Frenchman  did  for  the  loom. 
In  Figure  12  you  see  that  the  cloth  which  is  ex- 
posed shows  that  beautiful  designs  have  been  woven 
into  it.  This  is  what  Jacquard  did  for  the  loom. 
He  made  it  weave  into  the  cloth  whatever  design, 
color  or  tint  one  might  desire.  He  made  the  loom 
a  mechanical  artist  rivaling  in  excellence  the  work  of  a 
human  artist.  The  Jacquard  loom  has  brought 
about  a  revolution  in  man's,  and  especially  in  woman's 
dress.  With  the  old  loom,  colors  and  designs  could 
be  woven  into  cloth  but  only  very  slowly,  and  goods 
with  fancy  patterns  were  made  at  a  cost  that  was 
so  great  that  only  the  rich  could  afford  to  buy.  In 
the  olden  times,  therefore,  almost  everybody  wore 
120 


THE  LOOM 


FIG.    12. —  THE    JACQUARD    LOOM. 

121 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

plain  clothes.  With  Jacquard's  attachment  the  most 
beautiful  figures  can  be  cheaply  woven  into  the  com- 
monest fabrics.  As  far  as  weaving  is  concerned,  it 
costs  no  more  to  have  beautiful  figures  in  cotton 
goods  than  it  does  to  have  them  in  silk.  As  a  re- 
sult the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich  can  dress  as  their 
taste  and  fancy  may  suggest. 

The  last  century  brought  improvements  in  the 
weaving  art  as  every  century  before  it  brought  im- 
provements, but  the  changes  made  since  Jacquard's 
time  need  not  concern  us.  The  story  of  the  loom 
ends  with  the  Jacquard  "  attachment."  Perhaps  no 
other  of  man's  inventions  has  a  more  interesting  de- 
velopment than  the  loom.  We  can  see  it  grow,  piece 
by  piece.  First  a  simple  stick  from  which  dangle  the 
threads  of  the  warp;  then  the  heddle,  then  the  shut- 
tle, then  the  reed,  then  the  shuttle-race  and  the 
swiftly  flying  shuttle,  and  last  the  Frenchman's  won- 
derful device  for  weaving  in  colors  and  fancy  figures. 


122 


THE  HOUSE 

MAN  has  always  been  a  builder.  Like  squir- 
rels and  beavers  and  birds  he  provides  him- 
self a  home  as  by  instinct.  The  kind  of  house 
erected  by  a  people  in  the  beginning  depended  upon 
the  surroundings,  upon  the  enemies  that  prowled 
about,  upon  the  climate,  upon  the  building  materials 
close  at  hand.  In  a  hilly,  rocky  region  primitive 
folk  built  one  kind  of  house,  in  a  forest  they  built 
another  kind,  in  a  low  marshy  district  they  built  still 
another  kind.  In  all  cases  they  took  the  materials 
that  were  the  easiest  to  get  and  erected  the  kind  of 
dwelling  place  that  would  afford  the  greatest  safety 
and  comfort. 

If  one  could  have  traveled  over  the  earth  during 
the  first  days  of  man's  history  one  would  doubtless 
have  found  that  dwellings  were  made  of  wood,  for 
in  those  days  the  greater  part  of  the  earth  was  cov- 
ered with  forests.  To  build  a  home  in  the  forest 
was  the  simplest  of  tasks.  All  that  was  necessary 
was  to  fasten  together  the  tops  of  several  saplings, 
interlace  the  saplings  with  boughs  (Fig.  i)  and 
cover  the  frame  with  skins  of  animals  or  thatch  it 
with  leaves  and  grass.  A  cone-shaped  structure  of 
this  pattern,  a  tent,  or  hut,  or  wigwam,  was  the  first 
123 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


FIG.    I.— BUILDING   A    HOUSE    WITH 


I24 


THE  HOUSE 

house  of  all  primitive  people  who  lived  where  there 
was  plenty  of  wood. 

In  many  regions,  especially  in  parts  of  northwest- 
ern Europe,  the  wigwam  or  hut  was  not  always  the 
most  suitable  dwelling  place  for  early  man.  In 
hilly  and  mountainous  districts  and  along  streams 
where  shores  were  overhung  by  rocks  or  pierced  by 
caverns  the  first  inhabitants  found  that  a  hollow  in 


FIG.   2. —  A   CAVE-DWELLING. 


the  earth  was  the  best  kind  of  house.  Sometimes 
the  house  of  the  cave-dwellers  was  made  by  Nature 
(Fig.  2)  ;  sometimes  it  was  an  artificial  living-place 
dug  in  the  side  of  a  hill  or  mountain.  The  cave  was 
truly  a  rude  and  gloomy  home,  yet  there  was  a  time 
when  large  numbers  of  the  human  race  lived  in  caves. 
The  Zuni  Indians  of  Arizona  in  seeking  a  refuge 
from  their  enemies  built  their  homes  far  up  in  steep 
125 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


cliffs  where  it  was  almost  impossible  for  a  stranger 
to  go. 

Coming  down  from  the  highlands  to  the  lowlands 
where  there  were  swamps  and  marshes  or  where  in- 
land lakes  were  numerous,  we  find  that  the  first 
houses  were  built  upon  piles  driven  in  the  water  or 

in  the  mud 
(Fig.  3). 
These  1  a  k  e  - 

*-~w  •'-     dwellings'       as 

ed,  were  gener- 
ally connected 
with  the  main- 
land by  gang- 
ways of  wooden  piers,  although  sometimes  they 
could  be  approached  only  by  boat.  In  the  floors 
of  some  of  these  curious  dwellings  were  trap- 
doors through  which  baskets  could  be  lowered 
for  catching-  fish  in  the  lake  below.  The  chil- 
dren of  the  lake-dwellers  were  tethered  by  the 
feet  to  keep  them  from  falling  into  the  water. 
The  beautiful  city  of  Venice  in  its  infancy  was  a 
community  of  lake-dwellers.  The  rough  canoe 
of  the  lake-dwelling  time  has  developed  into  the 
graceful  gondola,  and  the  rude  wooden  pier  has 
grown  to  be  the  magnificent  Rialto. 

In    many    regions    the    most   convenient   building 
material  is  stone  and  all  over  the  earth  there  are 
126 


FIG.    3. — LAKE-DWELLINGS.    RESTORED. 

(From  Troyon.) 


THE  HOUSE 

proofs  to  show  that  building  with  stone  began  at 
a  very  early  date.  The  stones  in  the  earliest  stone 
structures  were  rough  and  unhewn  and  were  laid 
without  mortar  or  cement  (Fig.  4)  yet  they  were 
sometimes  fitted  together  with  such  nicety  that  a  thin 
knife  blade  could  not  be  passed  between  them.  Re- 


ne.  4. —  A   PRIMITIVE   STONE  HOUSE. 

mains  of  stone  houses  built  many  thousands  of  years 
ago  may  be  seen  in  Peru,  Mexico,  Italy,  and  Greece. 
These  primitive  dwellings  were  humble  and  simple, 
but  they  were  made  of  good  material  and  they  were 
well  built.  They  have  weathered  the  storms  of 
ages  and  they  have  remained  standing  while  later 
and  more  pretentious  buildings  have  crumbled  and 
disappeared. 

127 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

The  illustrations  of  early  building  which  have 
been  given  will  make  plain  the  truth  that  the  people 
of  a  particular  country  have  taken  the  materials 
nearest  at  hand  and  have  constructed  their  homes 
according  to  their  particular  needs.  Now  since  the 
beginnings  of  house  building  have  been  different  in 
different  parts  of  the  earth,  the  story  of  the  house 
will  not  be  the  same  in  all  countries.  In  China  and 
Japan,  where  the  light  bamboo  has  always  flourished 
and  has  always  been  used  in  building,  the  house  has 
had  one  development;  in  countries  where  granite 
and  marble  and  heavy  timber  abound  it  has  had  an- 
other and  an  entirely  different  development.  What 
then  is  the  story  of  the  house  as  we  see  it  in  our 
country?  Can  this  story  be  told?  As  one  passes 
through  an  American  city  looking  at  the  public  build- 
ings and  churches  and  stores  and  dwellings  can  one 
go  back  to  the  beginning  and  trace  step  by  step  the 
growth  of  the  house  and  tell  how  these  came  to  be 
what  they  are?  Let  us  see  if  this  cannot  be  done. 

Our  story  takes  us  back  many  thousands  of  years 
to  Egypt,  the  cradle  of  civilization.  From  Egypt 
it  will  take  us  to  Greece,  thence  to  Rome,  thence  to 
the  countries  of  Northern  Europe,  thence  to  Amer- 
ica. What  kind  of  houses  did  the  Egyptians  first 
build?  They  built  as  simple  a  structure  as  can  be 
imagined;  they  erected  four  walls  and  over  these 
they  placed  a  flat  roof  (Fig.  5).  The  roof  was 
made  flat  because  in  Egypt  there  is  scarcely  any 
rain  and  there  was  no  need  for  a  roof  with  a  slant. 
128 


THE  .HOUSE 


I-.}-1 


FIG.  5. —  AN  EGYPTIAN   HOUSE. 


FIG.   6. —  AN   ANCIENT   HEBREW   DWELLING. 
129 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

In  all  those  countries  where  rain  seldom   falls,   or 
never  falls,  the  flat  roof  is  the  natural  roof  (Fig.  6). 


FIG.   7. —  INTERIOR  OF  AN   ANCIENT  EGYPTIAN 
PALACE. 

Although  their  buildings  were   simple   in   construc- 
tion the  Egyptians  left  behind  them  most  remark- 
able specimens   of  the  builder's   art.     Their   pyra- 
130 


THE  HOUSE 

mids  and  monuments  and  sphinxes  and  palaces  have 
always  been  foremost  among  the  great  wonders  of 
the  world.  Figure  7  shows  the  interior  of  an 
ancient  Egyptian  palace.  This  palace  had  only  an 
awning  for  a  roof.  That  was  all  that  was  neces- 
sary to  keep  out  the  rays  of  the  sun.  Notice  the 
lofty  pillars  or  columns  of  this  building.  You  see 
they  are  adorned  above  or  below  with  the  figure  of 
the  lotus,  the  national  flower  of  the  Egyptians. 
The  column,  as  we  shall  see,  plays  an  important  part 
in  the  history  of  the  house  and  it  was  ancient  Egypt 
that  gave  the  world  its  first  lessons  in  the  art  of  mak- 
ing columns. 

From  Egypt  we  pass  over  "  the  sea  "  to  Greece. 
The  Greeks  borrowed  ideas  wherever  they  could 
and  in  the  matter  of  architecture  they  borrowed 
heavily  from  Egypt.  But  they  did  not  borrow  the 
flat  roof  of  the  Egyptians.  In  Greece  there  was 
some  rainfall  and  this  fact  had  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count when  building  a  house;  the  roof  had  to  slant 
so  that  the  rain  could  run  off.  Now  the  Greeks 
taught  the  world  the  best  way  to  make  a  slanting 
roof.  They  made  the  roof  to  slant  in  two  direc- 
tions from  a  central  ridge  (Fig.  8)  instead  of  hav- 
ing the  entire  roof  to  slant  in  one  direction  like  an 
ugly  shed.  The  slant  was  gentle  because  there  was 
no  snow  to  be  carried  off.  The  roof  of  two  slants 
formed  a  gable.  The  Greeks,  then,  were  the  in- 
ventors of  the  gable.  The  column  they  borrowed 
from  Egypt.  But  whenever  the  Greeks  borrowed 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

an  invention  or  an  idea  they  nearly  always  im- 
proved upon  it.  Instead  of  slavishly  imitating  the 
Egyptian  columns  they  tried  to  make  better  ones 
and  they  were  so  successful  that  they  soon  became 
the  teachers  of  the  world  in  column  making. 

The  oldest  and  strongest  of  the  Greek  columns 


FIG.  8. —  A  GREEK  DWELLING. 

belong  to  what  is  known  as  the  Doric  order  (Fig. 
9),  a  name  given  to  them  because  they  were  first 
made  by  the  Dorians,  the  original  Greek  dwellers 
in  Europe.  Aside  from  the  flutes  or  channels  which 
ran  throughout  its  length  the  Doric  column  was 
perfectly  plain.  In  the  older  Doric  columns  even 
132 


THE  HOUSE 

the  flutes  are  absent.      Its  capital  or  top,  was  with- 
out   ornament.     Later    the    graceful    and    elegant 


ft 


i 


FIG.   Q. —  THE  THREE   ORDERS   OF   COLUMNS. 

Ionic  pillar  (Fig.  9)  came  into  fashion.  We  can 
always  distinguish  an  Ionic  column  by  the  volute  or 
scroll  at  its  capital.  The  latest  of  the  Greek 
columns  was  the  Corinthian  (Fig.  9),  the  lightest, 
the  most  slender  and  the  most  richly  decorated  of 
all.  A  cluster  of  acanthus  leaves  at  its  capital  is 
the  most  prominent  ornament  of  the  Corinthian 
column.  The  Greeks  carried  the  art  of  column 
making  to  such  perfection  that  even  to  this  day  we 
imitate  their  patterns.  A  column  in  a  modern 
building  is  almost  certain  to  be  a  Greek  column.  It 

133 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

is  worth  one's  while,  therefore,  to  be  able  to  tell 
one  Greek  column  from  another.  One  can  do  this 
by  remembering  (i)  that  the  Doric  column  is  per- 
fectly plain  and  has  no  capital;  (2)  that  the  Ionic 
column  has  a  scroll  at  the  capital;  (3)  that  the 
capital  of  the  Corinthian  column  is  adorned  with  a 
cluster  of  acanthus  leaves. 


FIG.    IO. —  AN    OLD    ROMAN    ARCH. 


Our  story  now  takes  us  to  Italy.  Greece  fell  be- 
fore the  power  of  Rome  146  B.C.,  but  before  she  fell 
she  had  taught  her  conquerors  a  great  deal  about 
architecture.  Indeed  the  Romans  took  up  the  art 
of  building  where  the  Greeks  left  it.  They  needed 
the  Greek  gable  for  they  had  rains,  and  the  Greek 
column  recommended  itself  to  them  on  account  of 
its  beauty.  They  used  the  best  features  of  Grecian 
134 


THE  HOUSE 

architecture  and  added  a  feature  that  was  largely 
their  own.  This  was  the  arch.  The  Greeks,  like 
the  Egyptians  before  them,  bridged  over  the  open- 
ings of  doors  and  windows  and  the  spaces  between 
columns  by  means  of  straight  wooden  beams  or 
long  blocks  of  stone.  The  Romans  bridged  over 
these  spaces  with  the  arch  (Fig.  10).  If  you  will 
study  the  arch  you  will  see  that  it  is  a  curved  struc- 
ture which  is  supported  by  its  own  curve.  You  will 
also  see  that  it  is  a  structure  of  great  strength.  The 
greater  the  weight  placed  upon  it,  providing  its 
bases  are  supported,  the  stronger  it  gets.  In  teach- 
ing the  world  how  to  make  arches  Rome  added  to 
the  house  an  element  of  great  strength  and  beauty. 
With  the  arch  came  the  tall  building.  In  Greece  a 
house  was  never  more  than  two  stories  high.  In 
Rome  arch  rose  upon  arch  (Fig.  n);  the  dome 
which  is  itself  a  kind  of  arch  appeared  and  palaces 
were  piled  story  upon  story  until  they  seemed  to 
reach  the  skies. 

From  Italy  we  pass  to  northern  Europe.  The 
power  of  Rome  fell  476  A.D.,  but  before  that  date 
the  greater  part  of  Europe  had  been  Romanized, 
and  the  Roman  way  of  building  with  column  and 
arch  and  dome  had  been  learned  in  France  and  Ger- 
many and  England.  But  the  climate  of  those 
countries  was  different  from  that  of  Italy  and  a 
slight  change  in  the  Roman  way  of  building  was 
necessary.  In  the  northern  countries  there  were 
heavy  rains  and  snows  and  a  roof  with  a  gentle 
135 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

slope  was  not  suitable  for  carrying  off  large  quanti- 
ties of  water  and  snow.  A  gable  (Fig.  12)  with  a 
sharp  slant  was  necessary.  Hence  throughout  north- 


ern Europe  the  roofs  were  built  much  steeper  than 
they  were  in  Italy  and  Greece,  although  in  other 
respects  the  northern  houses  resembled  more  or  less 
closely  those  of  the  older  southern  countries. 


THE  HOUSE 

The  pointed  roof  which  was  made  necessary  by 
the  climate  of  the  north  prepared  the  way  for  a  new 
style  of  building,  the  pointed  or  Gothic  style.  This 
style  began  to  appear  in  the  twelfth  century  and  by 
the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  —  that  remarkable 


FIG.   12. —  A  DWELLING  IN  NORTHERN  EUROPE. 

century  again  —  the  buildings  of  all  northern 
Europe  were  Gothic.  The  new  style  began  with  a 
change  in  the  arch.  The  Roman  arch  was  a  semi- 
circle and  was  therefore  described  from  one  center. 
The  Gothic  arch  was  formed  by  describing  it  from 
two  centers  instead  of  one  and  was  therefore  a 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


pointed  arch.  As  the  pointed  arch  grew  in  favor 
it  became  the  fashion  to  shape  other  parts  of  the 
building  into  points  wherever  it  was  possible  to  do 
this.  The  rounding  dome  became  a  spire  "  point- 
ing heavenward";  the  windows  and  doors  were 

pointed  and  so 
were  the  orna- 
ments and  dec- 
orations. For 
several  centuries 
buildings  fairly 
bristled  with 
p  o  i  n  t  s  (Fig. 
13).  The  finest 
example  of 
Gothic  architec- 
ture is  the  glori- 
ous cathedral  at 
Cologne. 

During  the 
thousand  years 
of  the  Dark 
Ages  (476- 
1453)  the 
glories  of  the 
civilization  of 
ancient  Greece 
FIG.  13.- POINTED  STYLE.  and  Rome  faded 

Typical  scheme  of  a  fully  developed  French    almost  complete- 
cathedral  of  the  ijth  century.     (From  Viol-    ,        r  u 
let-le-Duc's  "  Diet,  de  1' Architecture.")               ]Y    trom    human 

138 


THE  HOUSE 

vision.  Events  of  the  sixteenth  century  brought 
those  glories  again  into  view  and  Europe  was 
dazzled  by  them.  Men  everywhere  became  dis- 
satisfied with  the  things  around  them.  They  longed 
for  ancient  things.  They  read  ancient  authors,  they 
imitated  ancient  artists,  they  imbibed  the  wisdom  of 
ancient  teachers.  This  was  the  period  of  the  Re- 
naissance, the  time  when  the  world  was  born  anew  — 
as  it  pleased  men  to  think  and  say.  The  world  of 
the  present  died  and  the  old  world  of  Greece  and 
Rome  was  brought  to  life.  Of  course  in  the  new 
order  of  things  architecture  underwent  a  change. 
//  was  born  again;  it  experienced  a  renaissance. 
The  pointed  style  grew  less  pleasing  to  the  builder's 
eye,  and  wherever  he  could  he  placed  in  his  building 
something  that  was  Greek  or  Roman,  here  an 
arched  doorway,  there  a  Greek  column.  There 
resulted  from  these  changes  a  style  that  was  neither 
Gothic,  Grecian  nor  Roman,  but  a  mixture  of  all 
these.  This  mixed  style  was  named  after  the 
period  in  which  it  arose.  When  you  see  a  building 
that  strongly  resembles  the  buildings  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome  and  at  the  same  time  has  features 
which  belong  to  other  styles  you  may  safely  say  that 
the  building  belongs  to  the  renaissance  style.  (Fig. 
14.)  The  most  noble  and  beautiful  examples  of 
renaissance  architecture  are  the  church  of  St.  Peter's 
at  Rome  and  the  church  of  St.  Paul  at  London. 

We  now  pass  over  to  America.     About  the  time 
the  old  world  was  born  anew  the  new  world  was 
'39 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

found.  The  houses  of  the  first  settlers  in  America 
were  of  course  rude  and  ugly  but  as  the  colonies 
grew  in  population  and  wealth  more  expensive  and 
beautiful  houses  were  built.  As  we  should  expect, 


FIG.    T4- —  A    RENAISSANCE    DWEU.INC,. 

the  colonists  built  their  best  houses  in  the  style  that 
was  then  in  fashion  in  the  old  world  and  that  was 
the  renaissance  style.  They  did  not,  however,  copy 
the  old  world  architecture  outright.  They  had  dif- 
140 


THE  HOUSE 

ferent  materials,  a  different  climate  and  a  different 
class  of  workmen  and  they  had  to  build  according 
to  these  changed  conditions.  The  result  was  a  style 
of  building  that  has  been  called  colonial  (Fig.  15). 


FIG.    15. —  A    COLONIAL    MANSION. 

The  Cliveden   Chew   Mansion,  where  the   Battle  of   German- 
town  was  fought. 

Colonial  architecture  was  simply  American  renais- 
sance. And  that  is  what  it  is  to-day.  To  say  that 
a  house  is  in  the  colonial  style  is  to  say  that  it  repre- 
sents a  certain  architect's  ideas  as  to  what  is  best  and 
most  beautiful  in  all  styles. 

The  story  of  the  house  really  ends  with  the  period 
of  the  renaissance.  Since  the  sixteenth  century 
nothing  really  new  in  architecture  has  been  dis- 
covered and  men  have  been  wedded  to  no  particular 
style.  When  we  want  to  build  a  house  we  choose 
141 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

from  all  the  styles  and  build  according  to  our  tastes. 
Our  story  of  the  house,  however,  will  not  be  complete 
without  a  brief  account  of  what  has  been  called  ele- 
vator architecture.  The  high  price  of  land  in  large 


(Copyright  1911    by   Underwood  &  Underwood,  'N.  Y.) 
FIG.    l6.—  ELEVATOR   ARCHITECTURE. 

The  tower-like  structure  in  the  distance  is  a  building  more  than 
forty  stories  in  height. 

cities  makes  it  necessary  to  run  buildings  up  to  a  con- 
siderable height  if  they  are  to  be  profitable.  Now  if 
a  building  is  more  than  five  stories  high  it  must  have 
an  elevator,  or  lift,  and  if  an  elevator  is  to  be  put 
in,  the  building  might  as  well  be  run  up  nine  or  ten 
stories.  American  business  men  learned  this  thirty 
142 


THE  HOUSE 

or  forty  years  ago  and  began  to  build  high,  and  they 
have  been  building  higher  and  higher  ever  since. 
There  are  tall  buildings  in  other  countries  but  the 
"  sky-scraper  "  of  twenty-five  and  thirty  stories  is 
found  only  in  the  United  States  (Fig.  16). 

Thus  we  may  see  in  the  house  of  to-day  a  long 
and  unbroken  story.  Where  the  roof  is  flat  it  is 
Egyptian;  where  it  slants  gently  in  two  directions 
it  is  Greek;  where  it  is  steep  or  sharply  pointed  it  is 
Gothic.  The  columns  are  Greek,  the  rounded  arches 
are  Roman.  The  whole  is  the  result  of  the  thou- 
sands of  years  of  effort  which  man  has  given  to  the 
task  of  providing  for  himself  a  safe,  convenient 
and  beautiful  home. 


THE    CARRIAGE 

WE  are  very  proud  in  our  day  of  our  means  of 
transportation.  If  one  wishes  to  send  a 
present  to  a  friend  a  thousand  miles  away  a  few 
cents  spent  in  postage  will  take  the  article  to  its 
destination.  If  for  the  sake  of  higher  prices  a  fruit 
grower  wishes  to  sell  his  crops  in  a  distant  city,  the 
railroad  people  will  haul  it  for  him  at  a  very  small 
cost.  If  you  wish  to  visit  a  friend  in  town  several 
blocks  away,  there  is  the  electric  car  ready  to  take 
you  for  a  nickel.  If  your  friend  is  several  hundred 
miles  away,  the  steam  car  will  take  you  in  a  few 
hours  at  a  cost  of  not  more  than  two  or  three  cents 
a  mile.  I  am  living  in  the  country  sixteen  miles 
from  the  city  in  which  my  work  lies,  and  for  nine 
cents  I  am  carried  to  the  place  of  my  business  in  less 
than  half-an-hour.  What  has  been  the  history  of 
the  inventions  which  make  transportation  so  com- 
fortable, rapid  and  cheap?  Our  subject  divides 
itself  into  two  parts,  transportation  on  land  and 
transportation  on  water  or  the  story  of  the  Carriage 
and  the  story  of  the  Boat.  We  will  have  the  story 
of  the  carriage  first.  v 

Man's  only  carriage  at  first  was  of  course  his  own 
feet.     When  he  wanted  to  go  to  any  place  he  had  to 
144 


THE  CARRIAGE 


take  "  Walker's  hack,"  if  a  playful  expression  may 
be  pardoned.  As  a  traveler  on  foot,  man  soon  sur- 
passed all  other  animals.  He  could  walk  down  the 
deer  and  wear  out  the  horse.  When  it  came  to 
carrying  things  from  place  to  place,  in  the  begin- 
ning he  had  to  rely  upon  his  own  limbs  and  muscles. 
It  was  not  long,  however,  before  he  learned  that 
there  were  good  ways  and  bad  ways  of  carrying 
things,  and  he  soon  set  about  finding 
the  best  way.  We  may  believe  that 
he  began  by  making  a  snug  bundle 
and  carrying  it  on  his  shoulder. 
Then  he  found  that  he  could 
carry  a  heavier  burden  upon 
his  back,  and  he  invented  a 
pack  or  frame  on  which  he 
could  carry  things  on  his  back 
(Fig.  i)  after  the  manner  of 
one  of  our  modern  pack 
peddlers. 

In  the  course  of  time  man 
tamed  one  or  more  of  the  wild 
beasts  which  roamed  near  him. 
Then  the  burden  was 
shifted  from  the  back 
of  a  man  to  the  back 
of  a  beast.     The  first 
beast     of     burden     in 

South     America     was 

T     ..      .        (From  a  Model  in  National  Mu- 
the  llama;  in  India  it  seum.) 

145 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


was  the  elephant;  in 
Arabia  it  was  the  camel 
(Fig.  2).  In  Europe 
and  in  parts  of  Asia  and 
in  Egypt  the  horse  first 
became  man's  burden 
bearer  and  the  nations 
which  had  the  services 
J  \f  i  of  this  swift  and  strong 
animal  outstripped  the 
other  nations  of  the 
world.  "  Which  is  the 
most  useful  of  ani- 
mals? "  asked  one  Egyptian  god  of  another.  "  The 
horse,"  was  the  reply,  "  because  the  horse  enables  a 
man  to  overtake  and  slay  his  enemy." 

It  is  often  easier  to  drag  a  thing  along  than  it  is 
to  carry  it.  This  fact  led  to  the  invention  of  what 
we  may  call  the  first  and  simplest  form  of  carriage. 


FIG.    2.—  A   SHIP  OF  THE  DESERT. 


FIG.   3. —  A    CART   WITHOUT    WHEELS. 

(From  a  Model  in  the  National  Museum.) 
I46 


THE  CARRIAGE 

This  was  the  drag  or  travail  (tra-vay'),  a  cart  with- 
out wheels  (Fig.  3).  Two  long  saplings  were 'fas- 
tened at  the  large  end  to  the  strap  across  the  horse's 
breast  and  the  small  end  upon  which  the  burden  was 
placed  dragged  upon  the  ground.  Mr.  Arthur 
Mitchell  in  his  delightful  book,  "  The  Past  in  the 
Present,"  tells  us  that  he  saw  carts  of  this  kind  in 
actual  use  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland  as  late  as 
1864!  An  improvement  upon  the  travail  was  the 
sledge  made  of  the  forked  limb  of  a  tree  (Fig.  4). 
This  primitive  sledge  was  really  a  travail  consisting 
of  one  piece 


FIG.    4. —  A    PRIMITIVE    SLEDGE. 

(From  a  Model  in  National  Museum.) 

In  many  cases  it  is  easier  to  roll  a  thing  than  it  is 
to  drag  it.  This  fact  led  to  another  step  in  the 
development  of  the  carriage;  it  led  from  the  cart 
without  wheels  to  a  cart  with  a  wheel  —  a  most  im- 
portant step  in  the  history  of  inventions.  The  first 
wheeled  cart  was  simply  a  log  from  each  end  of 
which  projected  an  axle  (Fig.  5).  The  axle  fitted 
in  the  holes  of  a  frame  upon  which  the  body  of  the 
cart  was  placed  and  to  which  the  horse  or  the  ox  was 
attached.  As  the  cart  moved  along,  wheel  (log  and 
axle)  turned  together.  The  very  ancient  method 
of  moving  a  load  by  rolling  it  along  was  in  use  in 
the  United  States  not  so  very  long  ago.  As  late 


STORIFS  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

as  1860  in  some  of  the  southern  States  hogsheads 
of  tobacco  (Fig.  6)  were  rolled  over  country  roads 
in  the  manner  just  described  and  as  late  as  1880  the 
fishermen  of  Nantucket  used  as  a  fish  cart  a  vehicle 


FIG.   5. —  THE  FIRST  CART.  FIG.   6. —  HAULING  TOBACCO. 

(From  a   Model  in   National   Museum.) 

that  had  only  a  barrel  for  its  wheel.  (Fig.  7.) 
The  common  wheel-barrow  and  the  one-wheeled 
carts  which  are  still  used  in  China  and  Japan  had 
their  origin  in  the  rolling  log. 


FIG.    7. —  A    NANTUCKET    FISH    CART. 

(From  a  Model  in  the  National  Museum.) 


We  are  told  by  some  writers  that  the  rolling  log 
(the  one-wheeled  cart)    was   followed  by  the  two- 
wheeled  cart,  on  which  the  wheels  were  the  ends  of  a 
log  and  the  axle  was  the  middle  portion  of  the  log 
148 


THE  CARRIAGE 


FIG.     8. —  A     CART     WITH     WHEELS 
AND   AXLE   IN   ONE    PIECE. 


hewn  down  to  a  proper 

size     (Fig.     8).     Here 

wheels  and  axle  turned 

together  precisely  like  a 

modern  car  wheel.  This 

makes   a   very  pretty 

story   but   I    am   afraid 

the     solid     two-wheeled 

affair      represented      in 

Figure    8    is    only    imaginary,    and   that    in    a    true 

account    of    the    development    of    the    cart    it    has 

no  place.     The  true  beginning  of  the  two-wheeled 

cart   may   be    learned    from    Figure    9.     Here   the 

wheels  are  two  very  short  logs  through  the  center 

of  which  are  holes  in  which  the  round  ends  (axles) 

of  a  piece  of  timber  (the  axle-tree)   fit.     When  the 

cart  moves,  the  wheels  turn  upon  the  axle.     The  one- 


r^S 

FIG.  9. —  CART  WITH  A  SOLID  WHEEL. 
149 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

wheeled  cart  had  at  first  one  log  turning  with  the 
axle;  the  two-wheeled  cart  at  first  had  as  its  wheels 
two  very  short  logs  turning  on  the  axles. 

The  first  two-wheeled  carts  were  a  great  improve- 
ment upon  the  single  rolling  log,  yet  they  were  ex- 
ceedingly heavy  and  clumsy.  The  trouble  was  with 
the  wheel.  This  was  very  thick  and  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  hole  in  which  the  axle  went  it  was 


FIG.    IO. —  CART   WITH    WHEEL   PARTLY    SOLID. 

(From  a  Model  in  the  National  Museum.) 

entirely  solid.  Wheelwrights  at  a  very  early  date 
saw  that  the  problem  was  to  make  the  wheel  light 
and  at  the  same  time  to  keep  it  strong.  Little  by  lit- 
tle this  problem  was  solved.  At  first  crescent- 
shaped  holes  were  made  in  the  wheel  (Fig.  10). 
This  made  the  wheel  lighter,  but  did  not  weaken  it. 
In  its  next  form  the  wheel  was  even  less  solid  than 
150 


THE  CARRIAGE 

before.  It  now  consisted  of  four  curved  pieces  of 
wood  (Fig.  n)  held  together  by  four  spokes.  In 
this  wheel  there  was  a  hub,  but  the  spokes  were  not 


FIG.    II. —  WHEELS    WITH    SPOKES. 

(From  National  Museum.) 


inserted  in  it;  they  were  fastened  about  it.      In  the 
Egyptian  chariot  (Fig.  12)  we  find  the  wheel  in  the 


FIG.    12. —  AN    ANCIENT    EGYPTIAN    CHARIOT    SHOWING    HUB,    SPOKES, 
FELLY   AND  RIB. 

(From  National  Museum.) 

last  stage  of  its  interesting  and  remarkable  develop- 
ment. Here  the  spokes,  six  in  number,  are  in- 
serted in  the  hub  from  which  they  radiate  to  the  six 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

pieces  of  the  felly  or  inner  rim.  Around  the  felly 
is  the  outer  rim  or  tire  made  of  wood  and  fastened 
to  the  felly  with  thongs.  The  wheel  of  to-day  has 


FIG.    13. —  WONDERFUL   ONE    HOSS    SHAY. 

(From  National  Museum.) 

more  iron  in  it,  and  has  more  spokes  and  is  lighter 
and  stronger  than  the  old  Egyptian  wheel,  yet  in  its 
main  features  it  is  made  like  it. 

A  light  running  two-wheeled  carriage  was  used 
by  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  ancient  world. 
Three  thousand  years  ago  in  the  great  and  wicked 
city  of  Nineveh  chariots  raced  up  and  down  the 
paved  streets  "  jostling  against  one  another  in  the 
broad  ways,  with  the  crack  of  the  whip,  the  rattle  of 
the  wheel  and  the  prancing  of  horses."  The 
chariot  played  an  important  part  in  the  life  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  in  their  racing  contests  and  in 
152 


THE  CARRIAGE 


their  wars,  and  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  it  was 
the  only  vehicle  in  general  use  in  Europe.  As  time 
passed  it  was  of  course  made  lighter  and  stronger 
and  better.  The  doctor's  gig  so  charmingly  de- 
scribed by  Holmes  in  his  "  Wonderful  One  Hoss 
Shay  "  may  be  taken  as  an  illustration  of  the  full 
development  of  the  two-wheeled  carriage  (Fig.  13). 
Bring  the  hind  part  of  one  Egyptian  chariot  op- 


x^^^fnfe^x" 


FIG.    14. —  AN  ANCIENT  ROMAN   CHARIOT. 

posite  to  the  hind  part  of  another,  lash  the  two 
chariots  together,  remove  the  tongue  of  one  of  the 
chariots  and  you  have  made  a  chariot  of  four  wheels 
or  a  coach.  The  form  of  the  most  ancient  of  four- 
wheeled  carriages  leads  to  the  belief  that  the  coach 
was  first  made  by  joining  together  two  two-wheeled 
chariots  in  the  way  just  described.  The  ancient 
Egyptians  had  their  four-wheeled  chariots  but  only 
their  gods  and  their  kings  had  the  privilege  of  riding 
153 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

in  them.  For  centuries  none  but  the  great  and  the 
powerful  rode  in  coaches.  The  Roman  chariot  (Fig. 
14),  bad  imitations  of  which  we  see  nowadays  in 
circus  processions,  was  used  only  in  the  splendid 
triumphal  processions  which  entered  Rome  after  a 
great  victory.  In  the  Middle  Ages  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  a  four-wheeled  carriage  now  and  then,  but  usually 
the  king  or  a  queen  is  lounging  in  it  (Fig.  15). 


FIG.    15. —  A  COACH   OF  THE   MIDDLE  AGES. 

The  coach  could  not  be  generally  used  in  Europe 
in  medieval  times  because  the  roads  were  so  bad. 
The  excellent  roads  made  by  the  Romans  had  not 
been  kept  in  good  condition.  Traveling  had  to  be 
done  either  on  horseback  or  in  the  two-wheeled  car- 
riage. In  1550  there  were  but  three  coaches  in 
Paris  and  in  London  there  was  but  one.  In  1564, 
however,  we  find  Queen  Elizabeth  riding  in  a  coach 
(Fig.  1 6)  on  her  way  to  see  her  lover,  Lord 
Leicester.  Insert  more  spokes  and  lighter  ones  in 
154 


THE  CARRIAGE 


FIG.  16. —  QUEEN  ELIZABETH'S  COACH. 

the  wheels  of  this  coach  of  the  queen's,  put  on  rub- 
ber tires  and  mount  the  body  on  elliptical  springs  l 
and  we  will  have  the  coach  of  to-day. 

1  About  the  year  1700  elliptical  springs  were  invented,  but  they 
did  not  find  their  way  into  general  use  until  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  later. 


155 


THE    CARRIAGE 

Continued 

IN  the  last  chapter  the  story  of  the  Carriage  was 
brought  up  to  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  of 
England.  In  the  century  following  Elizabeth's 
reign  a  new  and  most  remarkable  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  carriage  was  taken.  You  remember 
that  in  the  seventeenth  century  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  experimenting  with  steam  (p.  58).  Among  other 
experiments  was  one  made  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton. 
This  great  philosopher  tried  in  1680  to  make  a 

steam-carriage,  or  lo- 
ctunoth-r,  as  we  call  it. 
Figure  i  shows  the  prin- 
ciple upon  which  he 
tried  to  make  his  car- 
riagework.  The  steam 

was  to  react  against  the 
FIG.    i. —  NEWTON'S    STEAM    CAR-        ...  ,. 

WAGE,    1680.  air'      ^      m     .^      CaSC      °f 

Hero's  engine    (p.   56) 

and  thus  push  the  carriage  along.  Newton's  experi- 
ment was  not  satisfactory  but  the  idea  of  a  steam-car- 
riage was  now  in  men's  heads  and  the  hope  of  making 
one  continued  to  be  cherished.  In  1769  Cugnot,  a 
156 


-^ 


THE  CARRIAGE 

French  army  officer,  invented  a  steam-carriage  of 
three  wheels  (Fig.  2)  but  it  was  a  very  poor  one. 
It  traveled  only  three  or  four  miles  an 
hour,  it  could  carry  but  three  persons,  and  it  had 
to  stop  every  ten  minutes  to  get  up  steam.  Cugnot, 
however,  deserves  to  be  ranked  among  the  great  in- 
ventors for  he  showed  that  a  steam-engine  could  be 


' 


FIG.  2.—  CUGNOT'S  STEAM  CARRIAGE,  1769. 

attached  to  a  carriage  and  could  push  it  along.  In 
other  words  he  showed  that  steam  could  be  used  for 
transportation  as  well  as  for  working  pumps  and 
turning  the  wheels  of  factories.  And  that  was  just 
what  was  needed  most  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  Man  needed  assistance  in  traveling; 
he  especially  needed  help  in  carrying  things  from 
157 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

place  to  place.  The  steam-engine  was  keeping  the 
mines  dry  and  making  it  possible  to  mine  great 
quantities  of  coal  and  was  turning  the  wheels  of 
great  factories  where  the  spinning-jenny  and  the 
new  power  loom  (p.  119)  were  consuming  enor- 
mous quantities  of  cotton  and  wool.  Now  if  the 
steam-engine  could  also  be  made  to  carry  the  coal 
and  cotton  and  wool  to  the  factory,  and  the  man- 
ufactured products  from  the  factory  to  the  market, 
the  industrial  revolution  would  be  complete  in- 
deed. 

Inventors  everywhere  put  their  wits  together  to 
construct  an  engine  that  would  draw  a  load.  The 
great  Watt  tried  to  make  one,  but  having  failed,  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  steam-engine  could 
do  good  work  only  when  standing  still.  Among 
those  who  entered  the  contest  was  Richard  Trevi- 
thick,  a  Cornish  miner,  born  in  1771.  Trevithick 
when  a  lad  at  school  was  able  to  work  six  examples 
in  arithmetic  while  his  teacher  worked  one.  He 
proved  to  be  as  quick  in  mechanics  as  he  was  in 
mathematics.  He  began  his  experiments  with 
steam  when  a  mere  boy,  and  as  early  as  1796  he 
had  built  a  steam-locomotive  which  would  run  on 
a  table.  By  1801  he  had  constructed  a  steam-car- 
riage (Fig.  7).  Three  years  later  (1804)  Trevi- 
thick exhibited  a  locomotive  which  carried  ten  tons 
of  iron,  seventy  men,  and  five  wagons  a  distance  of 
nine  and  one-half  miles  at  the  rate  of  five  miles  an 
hour.  This  was  the  first  steam  carriage  that 
158 


THE  CARRIAGE 

actually  performed  useful  work.  The  honor  of  in- 
venting the  first  successful  locomotive,  therefore,  be- 
longs to  Richard  Trevithick,  although  he  never  re- 
ceived the  honor  that  was  due  him. 

The  honor  went  to  George  Stephenson,  of  Wylam, 
near  Newcastle,  England.  Stephenson's  parents 
were  so  poor  that  they  could  not  afford  to  send  him 
to  school  long  enough  for  him  to  learn  to  read  and 
write.  In  his  eighteenth  year,  however,  he  attended 
a  night  school  and  learned  something  of  the  common 
branches.  In  his  childhood  Stephenson  lived  among 
steam-engines.  He  began  as  an  engine  boy  in  a  col- 
liery and  was  soon  promoted  to  the  position  of  fire- 
man. At  an  early  age  he  was  trying  to  build  the 
locomotive  that  the  world  needed  so  badly,  one  that 
would  do  good  work  at  a  small  cost.  Trevithick's 
locomotive  was  too  expensive.  Stephenson  wanted 
a  locomotive  that  would  pay  its  owner  a  profit.  At 
the  age  of  thirty-three  he  had  solved  his  problem. 
In  1814  he  exhibited  a  locomotive  that  would  run 
ten  or  twelve  miles  an  hour  and  carry  passengers 
and  freight  cheaper  than  horses  could  carry  them. 
Eleven  years  later  he  was  operating  a  railroad  be- 
tween Stockton  and  Darlington,  England.  The 
steam  carriage  was  now  a  success  (Fig.  3).  The 
iron  horse  was  soon  transporting  passengers  and 
freight  in  all  the  civilized  countries  of  the  world 
(Fig.  4).  Observe  that  the  first  passenger  car  was 
simply  the  old  coach  joined  to  a  locomotive. 

The  locomotive  worked  wonders  in  travel  and  in 
159 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

carrying  loads,  yet  men  were  not  satisfied  with  it. 
We  never  are  satisfied  with  our  means  of  transpor- 


S.i.D.R.     N°|.    .1  825. 


FIG.  3. —  STEVENSON'S  LOCOMOTIVE,  1828. 

tation.     No  matter  how  comfortably  or  cheaply  or 
fast  we  may  travel  we  always  want  something  better. 


FIG.    4. —  THE    "BEST    FRIEND."      THE    FIRST    LOCOMOTIVE    BUILT    FOR 
ACTUAL   SERVICE   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  great 

cities    of   the   world  were   becoming   over-crowded. 

1 60 


THE  CARRIAGE 


FIG.   5.—  A  TROLLEY   CAR. 


The  people  could  not  be  carried  from  one  part  of  a 
city  to  another  without  great  discomfort.  The 
street  cars  drawn  by  horses  could  not  carry  the 
crowds  and 
the  elevated 
steam  cars 
were  not  satis- 
factory. Wits 
were  set  to 
work  to  relieve 
the  situation 
and  about  thirty  years  ago  the  electric  car  (Fig.  5) 
was  invented.  Without  horse  or  locomotive  this 
quick-moving  car  not  only  successfully  handles 
the  crowds  which  move  about  the  city  but  it  also 
relieves  over-crowding  by  enabling  thousands  to  reach 
conveniently  and  cheaply  their  suburban  homes.  It 
also  does  the  work  of  the  steam  car  and  carries  pas- 
sengers long  distances 
from  city  to  city. 

A    late    development 
in    carriage    making    is 
seen  in  the  automobile. 
As  far  back  as  the  six- 
teenth century  a  horse- 
less carriage  was  invent- 
ed   (Fig.    6)    and  was 
operated   on    the    streets    of   a    German   city.     But 
here  the   power   was    furnished  by   human   muscle. 
The  first  real  automobile   (Fig.  7)  was  invented  in 
161 


FIG.  6. —  A  HORSELESS  CARRIAGE  OF 
THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

1 80 1,  by  the  man  who  invented  the  first  successful 
locomotive.  Trevithick's  road  locomotive  —  for 
that  is  what  an  automobile  really  is  —  did  not  work 
well  because  the  roads  upon  which  he  tried  it  were 
in  very  bad  condition.  Inventors  after  Trevithick 
for  a  long  time  paid  but  little  attention  to  the  road 
locomotive;  they  bestowed  their  best  thought  upon 


FIG.   7. —  THE  FIRST  AUTOMOBILE. 

the  locomotive  that  was  to  be  run  upon  rails  —  the 
railroad  locomotive.  In  recent  years,  however,  they 
have  been  working  on  the  so-called  automobile  and 
they  have  already  given  us  a  horseless  carriage  that 
can  run  on  a  railless  road  at  a  rate  as  great  as  that 
of  the  fastest  railroad  locomotives.  To  what  ex- 
tent is  this  newest  of  carriages  likely  to  be  used?  It 
162 


THE  CARRIAGE 

is  already  driving  out  the  horse.  Will  it  also 
drive  out  the  electric  car  and  the  railroad  loco- 
motive? Are  we  coming  to  the  time  when  the  rail- 


FIG.   8.—  COOD-BY   TO  THE   HORSE. 

road  will  be  no  more  and  when  all  travel  and  all 
hauling  of  freight  will  be  done  by  carriages  and 
wagons  without  horses  on  roads  without  rails?  The 
answers  to  these  questions  can  of  course  only  be 
guessed. 

The  last  and  latest  form  of  the  carriage  is  seen  in 
the  flying-machine,  the  automobile  of  the  air.  In  all 
ages  men  have  watched  with  envy  the  movements  of 
birds  and  have  dreamed  of  flying-machines,  but  only 
in  modern  times  has  man  dared  to  take  wings  and 
glide  in  bird-like  fashion  through  the  air.  The  first 
actual  flying  by  a  human  being  was  done  by  a  French- 
man named  Bresnier,  who,  in  1675,  constructed  a 
•163 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

machine  similar  to  that  shown  in  the  right  hand  pic- 
ture at  the  top  of  Figure  9.      Bresnier  worked  his 


FIG.    9.—  SOME    UNSUCCESSFUL    FLYING     MACHINES    OF    A     HUNDRED 
YEARS   AGO. 

wings  with  his  feet  and  hands.  Once  he  jumped 
from  a  second  story  window  and  flew  over  the  roof 
of  a  cottage.  From  the  days  of  Bresnier  on  to  the 
present  time  man  has  taxed  his  wits  to  the  utmost 
to  conquer  the  air,  and  in  his  efforts  to  do  this  he 
has  invented  almost  every  conceivable  kind  of  ma- 
chine. About  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
164 


THE  CARRIAGE 

inventors  began  to  apply  steam  to  the  flying-machine, 
and  it  is  said  that  in  1842  a  man  named  Philips  was 
able,  by  the  aid  of  revolving  fans  driven  by  steam, 
to  elevate  a  machine  to  a  considerable  distance  and 
fly  across  two  fields.  In  1896  Professor  Langley, 
with  a  flying-machine  driven  by  a  small  steam-engine, 
made  three  flights  of  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile 
each  over  the  Potomac  River,  near  Washington. 


FIG.    10. —  A    SUCCESSFUL   FLYING    MACHINE   OF   TO-DAY. 

This  was  the  first  time  a  flying-machine  was  propelled 
a  long  distance  by  its  own  power;  it  was  the  first 
aerial  automobile.  But  the  aerial  steam  carriage 
was  never  a  success ;  the  steam  engine  was  too  heavy. 
In  the  early  years  of  the  twentieth  century  inventors 
began  to  use  the  light  gasoline  engine  to  drive  their 
flying-machines  and  then  real  progress  in  the  art  of 
flying  began,  and  so  great  has  been  that  progress 
that  the  automobiles  of  the  air  are  becoming  rivals 
of  those  on  the  land. 

165 


THE    BOAT 


AT  first,  when  a  man  wanted  to  cross  a  deep 
stream,  he  was  compelled  to  swim  across.  But 
man  at  his  best  is  a  poor  swimmer,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  he  invented  a  better  method  of  traveling 
on  water.  A  log  drifting  in  a  stream  furnished  the 
hint.  By  resting  his  body  upon  the  log  and  plash- 
ing with  his  hands  and  feet  he  found  he  could  move 
along  faster  and  easier.  Thus  the  log  was  the  first 
boat  and  the  human  arm  was  the  first  oar.  Expe- 
rience soon  taught  our  primitive  boatman  to  get  on 
top  of  the  log  and  paddle  along,  using  the  limb  of 

a    tree    for    an    oar 
(Fig.   i).     But  the 
round      log     would 
turn  with   the   least 
provocation   and  its 
passenger      suffered 
many      unceremo- 
nious  duckings.     So 
the    boatman    made 
his  log  flat  on  top. 
It  now  floated  better  and  did  not  turn  over  so  easily. 
Then  the  log  was  made  hollow,  either  by  burning 
(Fig.  2) ,  or  by  means  of  a  cutting  instrument.    Thus 
166 


FIG.    I. —  THE  FIRST  BOAT. 


THE  BOAT 


1-1G.    2.— THE   INVENTION    OK   THE  CANOE. 


FIG     3  —  THE    RAFT -^-SHOWING    ALSO    EARLY    USE   OK    THE    SAIL. 
I67 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

the  canoe  was  invented.  Very  often  if  the  nature  of 
the  tree  permitted  it,  the  log  was  stripped  of  its  bark, 
and  this  bark  was  used  as  a  canoe. 

The  canoe  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  boats,  but 
it  is  not  in  line  with  the  later  growth.  The  ancestry 
of  the  modern  boat  begins  with  the  log  and  is  traced 
through  the  raft  rather  than  through  the  canoe. 
By  lashing  together  several  logs  it  was  found  that 
larger  burdens  could  be  carried.  Therefore  the  boat 
of  a  single  log  grew  into  one  of  several  logs  —  a 
raft  (Fig.  3).  By  the  time  man  had  learned  to 
make  a  raft  he  had  learned  something  else: 
he  had  learned  to  row  his  boat  along  by 
pulling  at  an  oar  instead  of  pushing  it  along  with  a 
paddle.  But  in  order  to 
row  there  must  be  some- 
thing against  which  the 
oar  may  .rest;  so  the  oar- 
lock (Fig.  4)  was  invent- 
ed. Rafts  were  used  by 
nearly  all  the  nations  of 
antiquity.  Herodotus,  the 

FIG.     4-A^IMITIVE     OAR-          fc^    Q£    J^^     ^     ^ 

that  they  were   in  use  in 

ancient  Chaldea.  In  Figure  3  we  have  a  kind  of 
raft  that  may  still  be  seen  on  some  of  the  rivers  of 
South  America.  Here  a  most  important  step  in 
boat-building  has  been  taken.  A  sail  has  been 
hoisted  and  one  of  the  forces  of  nature  has  been  bid- 
den to  assist  man  in  moving  his  boat  along. 
168 


THE  BOAT 

The  raft  was  bound  to  develop  into  the  large 
boat.  The  central  log  was  used  as  a  keel  and  about 
this  was  built  a  boat  of  the  desired  shape  and  size. 
Stout  timbers,  called  ribs,  slanted  from  the  keel,  and 
on  the  ribs  were  fastened  planks  running  length- 
wise with  the  vessel.  To  keep  out  the  water  the  seams 
between  the  planks  were  filled  with  pitch  or  wax. 


FIG.     5- — "  THUS     THE     RAFT     GREW     INTO     A    LARGE,     SPOON-SHAPED 
VESSEL." 

Thus  the  raft  grew  into  a  large  spoon-shaped  ves- 
sel (Fig.  5).  The  early  boat  was  usually  propelled 
by  oars,  although  a  single  sail  sometimes  invoked 
the  assistance  of  the  wind.  It  had  no  rudder  and 
no  deck,  and  if  there  was  an  anchor  it  was  only  a 
heavy  stone. 

In  the  early  history  of  the  boat  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  rudder.     The  oarsman  had  to  steer  his 
169 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


craft  as  best  he  could.  With  the  appearance  of 
larger  boats,  however,  a  steersman  comes  into  view. 
He  steers  by  means  of  a  paddle  held  over  the  stern 
of  the  boat.  Within  historic  times,  probably  about 
the  time  of  Homer  (noo 
B.  c.),  the  rudder  appears 
as  an  oar  with  a  broad  blade 
protruding  through  a  hole 
in  the  side  of  the  boat  well 
to  the  stern  (Fig.  6). 
Throughout  the  whole 
period  of  ancient  history 
boats  were  steered  by  rud- 
ders of  this  kind. 

The  anchor  came  later 
than  the  rudder.  Of  course 
even  in  primitive  times 
there  were  methods  of  securing  the  vessel  to  the 
ground  under  water  but  they  were  very  crude.  Some- 
times a  sack  of  sand  was  used  as  an  anchor,  some- 
times a  log  of  wood  covered  with  lead  was  thrown 
overboard  to  hold  the  boat 
in  its  place.  In  Homer's 
time  the  anchor  was  a  bent 
rod  with  a  single  fluke. 
About  600  B.  c.  Anacharsis, 
one  of  the  seven  wise  men  of  Greece,  gave  a 
practical  turn  to  his  wisdom  and  invented  an  an- 
chor with  two  flukes  (Fig.  7).  The  invention  re- 
170 


FIG.  6. —  THE  POSITION  OF 
THE  RUDDER  IN  ANCIENT 
TIMES. 


FIG.    7. —  ANCIENT    ANCHORS. 


THE  BOAT 

ceived  the  name  of  u  anchor  "  from  the  name  of  the 
inventor. 

It  was  in  the  Mediterranean  Sea  that  the  boat  had 
its  most  rapid  development.  As  early  as  we  can 
get  a  glimpse  of  that  wonderful  body  of  water  it  was 
alive  with  boats  (called  galleys)  that  had  well-laid 
keels  and  lofty  sides,  and  rudders,  and  sails.  The 
greatest  of  the  earlier  navigators  were  the  Phoeni- 
cians whose  boats  had  traversed  5,000  years  ago  the 


FIG.  8. —  A  ROMAN  GALLEY  OF  ONE  TIER  OF  OARS,  IN- 
TRODUCING THE  RUDDER. 

whole  course  of  the  Mediterranean  and  had  even 
ventured  beyond  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar.  The  an- 
cient Greeks  also  were  a  great  sea-going  people,  and 
their  merchantmen  or  trading  boats  visited  every  part 
of  the  known  world.  But  it  was  the  Romans  who 
at  last  became  masters  of  the  ancient  seas.  The 
Roman  galley,  therefore,  may  be  taken  as  the  repre- 
sentative boat  of  ancient  times.  What  kind  of  a  boat 
was  the  Roman  galley?  It  was  propelled  chiefly  by 
oars,  just  as  nearly  all  the  boats  of  antiquity  were. 
171 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

Occasionally  a  sail  was  hoisted  when  the  wind  was 
favorable  but  the  main  reliance  was  the  rower's  arm. 
Men  had  not  yet  learned  to  use  the  sail  to  the  best 
advantage.  The  older  galleys  had  one  row  of  oars- 
men (Fig.  8),  but  as  the  struggle  for  the  mastery 
of  the  sea  became  keener  the  boats  were  made  larger 
and  more  rowers  were  necessary.  Galleys  with  two 
and  three,  and  even  four  rows  of  oarsmen  were  built 
by  the  Roman  navy.  When  there  was  more  than 
one  row  of  oars  the  rowers  sat  on  benches  one 
above  another.  The  oarsmen  were  slaves  or  pris- 
oners captured  in  war,  and  their  life  was  most 
wretched.1  They  were  chained  to  the  benches  on 
which  they  sat,  and  were  compelled  to  row  as  long  as 
a  spark  of  life  was  left.  Sometimes  they  dipped  their 
oars  to  the  music  of  the  flute,  but  more  often  it 
was  to  the  crack  of  the  lash.  Figure  9  shows  us  how 
the  Roman  galley  looked  when  Rome  was  at  the 
height  of  her  power  (100  A.  D.).  Here  is  a  vessel 
about  400  feet  long  and  about  50  feet  across  its 
deck,  a  part  of  the  boat,  by  the  by,  which  was  not 
to  be  seen  in  the  earlier  galleys.  The  boat  is  a  tri- 
reme, that  is,  it  has  openings  for  three  tiers  of  oars, 
and  it  is  propelled  by  several  hundred  oarsmen.  For 
steering  purposes  it  has  four  stout  paddles,  two  on 
each  side  near  the  stern.  Two  masts  instead  of  one 
carry  the  sail  which,  considering  the  size  of  the  boat, 
would  seem  to  be  insufficient.  This  galley  of  the  first 

1  A  spirited  account  of  life  on  a  Roman  galley  is  found  in  Wal- 
lace's "  Ben  Hur." 

172 


THE  BOAT 

century  of  our  era  represents  the  full  development  of 
the  boat  in  ancient  times. 

After  the  downfall  of  Rome  (476  A.  D.)  it  was  a 
long  time  before  there  was  any  real  progress  in  boat- 
making.  The  glimpses  we  get  now  and  then  of  ves- 


FIG.   9. —  A   ROMAN    GALLEY   WITH    THREE  BANKS   OF   OARS. 

sels  in  the  Middle  Ages  almost  make  us  feel  that 
boat-building  was  going  backward  rather  than  for- 
ward. But  such  was  not  the  case.  The  ship  in 
which  William  of  Normandy  sailed  (Fig.  10)  when 
he  crossed  over  the  Channel  to  give  battle  to  Harold 
(1066  A.  D.)  was  not  so  impressive  as  a  Roman 
galley,  yet  it  was,  nevertheless,  a  better  boat.  In  the 
first  place  William's  boat  was  a  better  sailer;  it  relied 
more  upon  the  force  of  the  wind  and  less  upon  the 
oar.  In  the  second  place,  it  could  be  steered  better, 
for  the  rudder  had  found  its  way  to  its  proper  place 
and  was  worked  by  a  tiller.  Finally,  the  shape  of 
173 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


FIG.     10.— THE    SHIP    IN     WHICH     WILLIAM     THE    CON- 
QUEROR   CROSSED    THE   CHANNEL    IN    IO66. 

the  Norman  boat  fitted  it  for  fiercer  battles  with  the 

waves. 

If  we  should  pass  from  the  English  Channel  to  the 

Adriatic  we  should 
find  that  boat-mak- 
ing had  undergone 
the  same  changes. 
A  Mediterranean 
galley  of  the  four- 
teenth century 

FIG.    II.—  A  MEDITERRANEAN  GALLEY  OP        }         g*        *  *  '        SnOWS 

THE  i4TH  CENTURY.  f  e  w  e  r   oars    and 

174 


THE  BOAT 


more  sails.  Instead 
of  three  rows  of 
oars  and  two  sails 
as  on  the  Roman 
galley,  t  h  e  r'e  are 
three  sails  and  one 
row  of  oars.  This 
was  the  tendency  of 
the  boat-builder  in 
the  Middle  Ages; 
he  crowded  on  the 
sail  and  took  off  the 
rowers.  A  war- 
boat  of  the  sixteenth 


FIG.  13. —  A  CHINESE  COM- 
PASS. AS  THE  CART  MOVED 
THE  HUMAN  FIGURE  IN 
FRONT  ALWAYS  POINTED 
NORTH. 


IG.  12. —  A  WAR-BOAT  OF  THE  l6TH 
CENTURY,  SHOWING  THAT  THE  LAST 
ROW  OF  OARS  HAD  DISAPPEARED. 

century  (Fig.  12)  shows  that 
the  last  row  of  oarsmen  has 
disappeared. 

About  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century  there  be- 
gan to  appear  on  the  decks 
of  vessels  almost  everywhere 
in  Europe,  a  little  instrument 
that  is  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance in  the  history  of  the 
boat.  This  was  the  mariner's 
compass.  The  use  of  the 
magnetic  needle  was  known 
in  China  (Fig.  13)  a  thou- 
sand years  before  it  was 
known  to  the  Europeans,  but 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

in  this,  as  in  many  other  instances,  the  Chinese  did  not 
profit  by  their  knowledge.  Sailors  have  always  sailed 
at  night  by  the  North  star;  but  before  the  use  of  the 
compass  was  understood  they  could  little  more  than 
guess  their  way  when  the  night  was  dark  and  the  stars 
could  not  be  seen.  With  a  mariner's  needle  on  board 
they  can  tell  the  direction  they  are  going  no  matter 
how  dark  the  night.  We  can  easily  understand  that 
sailors  prized  very  highly  the  discovery  of  the  com- 
pass. With  the  appearance  of  this  faithful  guide 
they  became  bolder  and  bolder  and  were  soon  ven- 
turing out  upon  the  trackless  expanse  of  the  ocean. 
It  was  the  compass  that  led  to  the  discovery  of  the 
new  world,  for  without  it  no  sailor  could  have  held 
his  course  due  west  long  enough  to  reach  the  Amer- 
ican coast. 

After  men  had  learned  to  carry  their  burdens  on 
the  broad  back  of  the  ocean,  boat-building  took 
on  new  life.  All  the  great  nations  of  Europe  wanted 
a  share  in  the  new  world  that  had  just  been  found; 
but  no  nation  could  hope  to  profit  greatly  by  the  dis- 
covery of  Columbus  if  its  vessels  were  not  swift  and 
strong.  So  there  arose  a  grim  contest  for  the  mastery 
of  the  Atlantic,  just  as  in  ancient  times  there  had  been 
a  struggle  for  the  mastery  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Spain,  France,  Portugal,  Holland  and  England  all 
joined  in  the  battle.  When  we  see  the  kind  of  boats 
she  sent  out  upon  the  oceans  we  are  not  surprised  that 
England  won.  Compare  the  heavy,  angular  galley  of 
the  first  century  with  the  graceful  ship  of  the  sixteenth 
176 


THE  BOAT 

century  and  we  see  at  once  the  progress  the  boat 
made  in  the  Middle  Ages  (Fig.  14). 

The  log,  the  raft,  the  galley,  the  sailing-ship,  these 
were  the  steps  in  the  development  of  the  boat  up  to 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  eight- 
eenth century  another  step  was  taken.  You  re- 
member that  in  that  century  inventors  were  every- 
where trying  to  make  a  steam  carriage.  They  were 


at  the  same  time  trying  to  make  a  steam  boat.  Their 
efforts  to  use  steam  to  drive  boats  were  rewarded  with 
success  earlier  than  were  their  efforts  to  use  it  to  draw 
carriages.  This  was  to  be  expected.  Boat-build- 
ing has  always  moved  along  faster  than  carriage- 
building.  Men  were  gliding  about  in  well-built  ca- 
noes before  they  had  even  the  clumsiest  of  carts.  The 
Londoners  who  gazed  with  admiration  upon  the 
177 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

Great  Harry  as  it  sailed  on  the  Thames,  had  never 
seen  as  much  as  a  lumbering  coach.  And  so  with 
the  steamboat;  it  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  before  the 
locomotive  could  carry  passengers  from  one  town  to 
the  next. 

France,  England,  Germany  and  America  were  all 
eager  to  have  the  first  steamboat.  In  this  race 
America  won,  although  France  and  England  came  out 
with  their  colors  flying.  As  far  back  as  1663  the 
Marquis  of  Worcester,  of  whom  we  have  heard 
before  (p.  59),  described  a  vessel  that  could  be 
moved  by  steam :  "  It  roweth,"  he  said,  "  it  draw- 
eth,  it  driveth  (if  needs  be)  to  pass  London  bridge 
against  the  stream  at  low  water."  It  was  one  thing, 
however,  to  describe  a  steamboat,  and  quite  another 
thing  to  make  one.  Worcester's  steam-vessel  existed 
only  in  the  imagination  of  the  inventor.  Denys 
Papin,  who  did  so  much  for  the  steam-engine,  fitted 
out  a  boat  with  revolving  paddles  which  were  turned 
by  horses.  This  was  nothing  new.  The  ancient 
Roman  galley  was  sometimes  propelled  by  paddle- 
wheels  turned  by  horses  or  oxen.  It  is  sometimes 
claimed  that  Papin  turned  the  paddle-wheels  of 
his  boat  by  means  of  steam,  but  there  are  no  grounds 
for  the  claim.  If  France  wants  the  honor  of  having 
made  the  first  steamboat  she  would  do  better  to 
turn  from  Papin  and  look  to  Marquis  of  Jouffroy  of 
Lyons.  This  nobleman,  it  is  claimed,  built  a  steam- 
boat (Fig.  15)  which  made  a  successful  trip  on  the 
river  Soane,  in  the  year  1783,  before  a  multitude  of 
178 


THE  BOAT 

witnesses.  This  claim  may  or  may  not  be  just.  It 
may  be  as  the  French  say:  the  boat  after  the  trial 
trip  may  have  been  taken  to  pieces,  the  model  may 
have  been  lost  and  the  French  Revolution  may  have 
swallowed  up  those  who  witnessed  the  trip. 


FIG.    IS- — THE   MARQUIS   OF   JOUFFROY's    STEAMBOAT,    1783. 


About  the  time  the  Frenchman  is  said  to  have 
been  experimenting  with  his  steambo'at  on  the 
Soane  similar  experiments  were  being  tried  in  many 
other  places.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  idea  of  a  steam-propelled  boat  seemed  to 
be  in  the  air.  An  English  poet  of  the  time  was  bold 
enough  to  prophesy : 

179 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

Soon  shall  thy  arm,  Unconquered  Steam,  afar 
Drag  the  slow  barge  and  draw  the  rapid  car, 
Or  on  wide,  waving  wings,  expanded  bear 
The  flying  chariot  through  the  fields  of  air. 

For  the  most  part  the  prophesy  has  been  fulfilled, 
although  the  steam  flying-machine  is  not  yet  an  ac- 
complished fact.  Among  those  who  helped  to  make 
good  the  words  of  the  poet  was  James  Rumsey,  of 
Sheppardtown,  Virginia.  Rumsey  in  1786  propelled, 
by  means  of  steam,  a  boat  on  the  Potomac  River 
moving  at  the  rate  of  five  miles  an  hour.  It  is  almost 
certain  that  this  was  the  first  boat  ever  drawn  by 
steam.  How  did  Rumsey  drive  his  boat?  A  piston 
in  a  cylinder  was  worked  by  a  steam-engine.  When 
the  piston  was  raised  it  brought  water  in  and  when  it 
was  pushed  down  it  forced  the  water  out  behind  and 
the  reaction  of  the  jet  pushed  the  boat  along.  A 
remarkable  revival  of  a  very  ancient  idea !  Just  as 
Hero  turned  his  globe  by  reaction,  just  as  Newton 
pushed  the  first  steam  carriage  along  by  reaction,  so 
Rumsey  pushed  the  first  steamboat  along  by  reaction. 
If  you  will  look  on  a  map  of  the  United  States  and 
observe  the  vast  network  of  waterways  which  come 
to  the  different  parts  of  the  country  you  will  under- 
stand how  important  a  subject  steam  navigation  must 
have  been  to  the  people  of  America  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Here  was  a  tract  of  land 
containing  millions  upon  millions  of  fertile  acres,  but 
it  lacked  good  roads,  and  without  roads  it  could  not 

180 


THE  BOAT 

be  developed.  It  was,  however,  traversed  by  thou- 
sands of  miles  of  excellent  water-roads  and  it  was 
plain  that  if  steamboats  could  be  put  upon  these  riv- 
ers the  gain  would  be  incalculable.  The  most  press- 
ing need  of  the  time,  therefore,  was  a  steamboat. 
No  one  saw  this  more  clearly  than  John  Fitch.  This 
talented  but  eccentric  man  served  his  country  in  the 
Revolution,  and  after  the  war  was  over  roamed 
hither  and  thither  for  several  years  as  a  soldier  of 
fortune.  About  1785  he  went  to  Philadelphia  with 
a  plan  for  a  steamboat.  He  organized  a  com- 
pany, and  secured  enough  money  to  enable  him  to 
carry  out  his  plans.  His  boat  was  ready  by  August, 
1787,  and  he  made  his  trial  trip  in  Philadelphia  when 
the  Constitutional  Convention  was  in  session.  Many 
of  the  members  of  that  distinguished  body  went  down 
to  the  river  to  see  how  the  new  invention  worked.  It 
worked  fairly  well,  but  did  not  arouse  much  en- 
thusiasm. Its  speed  was  only  three  or  four  miles 
an  hour  and  its  movement  was  exceedingly  awkward. 
It  was  pushed  along  by  two  sets  of  oars,  one  set  en- 
tering into  the  water  as  the  other  came  out.  The 
steam  rowboat  of  1787  proved  at  least  to  be  a  fail- 
ure, and  was  abandoned  as  worthless.  Fitch  after- 
ward built  another  steamboat,  but  it  also  met  with 
accident  and  came  to  naught.  Heartbroken  by  his 
many  failures  the  poor  fellow  at  last  ended  his  life 
with  his  own  hand.  He  deserved  a  better  fate,  for 
his  experiments  taught  the  world  a  great  deal  about 
the  steamboat. 

181 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

While  Rumsey  and  Fitch  were  making  their  boats 
in  America,  European  inventors  were  not  idle.  On 
the  contrary  they  were  so  very  active  that  they  al- 
most won  the  honor  of  making  the  first  successful 
boat.  One  of  these,  William  Symington,  an  English- 
man, built  a  boat  that  may,  with  much  justice,  be 
called  the  first  practical  steamboat  that  was  ever 
launched.  This  was  the  Charlotte  Dundas  (Fig. 

.     1 6)  which  made  its 

;t  r  i  a  1  trip  on  the 
Clyde  and  Firth 
j j.  M  x*,->  Canal  in  1802.  On 

the  Charlotte  was  a 

i^jJHHHH  paddle-wheel       i  n  - 

stead  of  Fitch's  two 

F1G-  I6'~THE   i£A2RLOTTE  DUNDAS>       sets  of  paddles.  The 

wheel  was  placed  at 

the  rear  of  the  boat  and  was  drawn  by  means 
of  a  crank  which  was  turned  by  a  rod  attached 
to  the  piston-rod.  Watt  and  his  co-workers,  a  few 
years  before,  had  shown  how  the  steam-engine  could 
be  made  to  turn  a  wheel  and  Symington  in  the  con- 
struction of  his  boat  put  this  principle  to  good  use. 
The  Charlotte  did  so  well  that  the  Duke  of  Bridge- 
water  ordered  eight  more  boats  like  her  to  be  built 
for  use  on  the  canal.  Symington  was  elated  for  he 
thought  he  had  at  last  made  a  successful  steamboat, 
that  is,  a  steamboat  that  would  give  to  its  owner  a 
profit;  but  he  was  doomed  to  disappointment  for  the 
owners  of  the  canal  refused  to  allow  steamboats  to  be 
182 


THE  BOAT 


employed  upon  it,  and  worse  than  this  the  duke  soon 
died  and  the  inventor's  financial  support  was  gone. 
The  Charlotte  was  taken  off  the  canal  and  laid  in  a 
creek  where  she  fell  to  pieces.  The  really  successful 
steamboat  had  not  yet  been  built. 

It  was  to  be  built  first  where  it  was  needed  most, 
and  that  was  in  America.  It  was  built  by  a  man  who 
kept  his  eyes  on  Rumsey  and  Fitch  and  Symington, 
and  made  the  best  of  what  he  saw.  As  all  the  world 
knows,  this  was  Robert  Fulton.  In  August  of  1807 
Fulton's  steam- 
boat the  Cler- 
mont  (  Fig. 
i  7  )  made  a 
trip  on  the 
Hudson  River 
from  New 
York  to  Al- 
bany, a  distance  of  150  miles,  in  thirty-two  hours,  and 
returned  in  thirty  hours.  Fulton  advertised  for  pas- 
sengers, and  his  boat  was  soon  crowded.  "  The 
Clermont,"  says  an  English  writer,  "  was  the  steam- 
boat that  commenced  and  continued  to  run  for  practi- 
cal purposes,  and  for  the  remuneration  of  her  own- 
ers." Here  was  the  boat  that  was  wanted  —  one 
that  was  financially  profitable. 

The  paddle-wheels  of  the  Clermont  were  on  the 

sides   of   the   boat   about   midship.     As    the   wheel 

turned,  about  half  of  it  was  in  the  water  and  about 

half  was  out.     There  were  engineers,  even  in  Ful- 

183 


FIG.   17. —  FULTON'S  STEAMBOAT,  CLERMONT. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

ton's  day  who  did  not  believe  the  wheels  ought  to 
be  on  the  sides  of  the  boat.  Look  at  waterfowl, 
they  said,  look  at  the  graceful  swan;  its  feet  do  not 
work  at  its  sides,  half  under  the  water  and  half  out. 
Every  animal  that  swims  propels  itself  from  behind, 
and  its  propellers  are  entirely  under  the  water.  So, 
thought  these  engineers,  the  paddle-wheel  of  a  boat 
should  be  placed  behind,  and  should  be  entirely  cov- 
ered by  the  water.  John  Stevens,  an  engineer  of 
Hoboken,  New  Jersey,  in  1805  built  a  steamboat  ac- 


ne.   l8. —  THE  BOAT  OF   STEVENS. 

cording  to  this  notion  (Fig.  18).  A  close  inspection 
of  the  wheel  of  the  boat  would  show  that  it  is  spiral- 
or  screw-like  in  shape.  Stevens'  boat  made  a  trial 
trip  on  the  Hudson  and  worked  well;  but  after  Ful- 
ton's great  success  the  little  steamer  with  its  spiral- 
shaped  wheel  in  the  rear  was  soon  forgotten.  The 
idea  of  a  screw-propeller,  however,  was  not  lost. 
It  was  taken  up  by  John  Ericsson,  a  Swedish  en- 
gineer, who,  in  1839,  built,  in  an  English  ship- 
yard for  an  American  captain,  the  first  screw- 
184 


THE  BOAT 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

propeller  that  crossed  the  Atlantic  —  the  Robert 
F.  Stockton.  This  was  the  last  step  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  boat.  Since  1839  there  has  been 
marvelous  progress  in  ship-building,  but  the  progress 
has  consisted  in  improving  upon  the  invention  of  Er- 
icsson rather  than  in  making  new  discoveries.  With 
the  screw-propeller  in  its  present  form  we  may  close 
our  story  of  the  boat.  The  homely  log  propelled  by 
rude  paddles  has  become  the  magnificent  floating  pal- 
ace. 


186 


THE    CLOCK 

TIC-TAC!  tic-tac!  go  the  wheels  of  time.  We 
cannot  stop  them;  they  will  not  stop  them- 
selves." Time  passing  is  life  passing  and  the  meas- 
urement of  time  is  the  measurement  of  life  itself. 
How  important  then  that  our  chronometers,  or  time 
measures,  be  accurate  and  faithful!  It  is  said  that  a 
slight  error  in  a  general's  watch  caused  the  over- 
throw of  Napoleon  at  Waterloo  and  thus  changed  the 
history  of  the  world.  Because  of  its  great  impor- 
tance the  measurement  of  time  has  always  been  a 
subject  of  deep  human  interest  and  the  story  of  the 
clock  begins  with  the  history  of  primeval  man. 

The  larger  periods  of  time  are  measured  by  the 
motion  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  The  year  and  the 
four  seasons  are  marked  off  by  the  motion  of  the 
earth  in  its  long  journey  around  the  sun;  the  months 
and  the  weeks  are  told  by  the  changing  moon;  sunrise 
and  sunset  announce  the  coming  and  the  going  of  day. 
The  year  and  the  seasons  and  the  day  were  measured 
for  primeval  man  by  the  great  clock  in  the  heavens, 
but  how  were  smaller  periods  of  time  to  be  measured? 
How  was  the  passing  of  fractional  parts  of  a  day,  an 
hour  or  a  minute  or  a  second  to  be  noted?  An  egg 
was  to  be  boiled;  how  could  the  cook  tell  when  it  had 
187 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


been  in  the  water  long  enough?  A  man  out  hunting 
wished  to  get  back  to  his  family  before  dark:  how 
was  he  to  tell  when  it  was  time  to  start  homeward? 

Plainly,  the  measurement  of  small  portions  of 
time  was  a  very  practical  problem  from  the  be- 
ginning. The  first  attempt  to  solve  the  problem 
consisted  in  observing  shadows  cast  by  the  sun.  The 
changing  shadow  of  the  human  form  was  doubtless 
the  first  clock.  As  the  shadow  grew  shorter  the  ob- 
server knew  that  noon  was  approaching;  when  he 
could  reach  out  one  foot 
and  step  on  the  shadow  of 
his  head  he  knew  it  was 
time  for  dinner;  when  his 
shadow  began  to  lengthen 
he  knew  that  evening  was 
coming  on.  Observations 
of  this  kind  led  to  the 
shadow  clock  or  sun-dial 
(Fig.  i).  You  can  make 
one  for  yourself.  On  a  per- 
fectly level  surface  exposed 
all  day  to  the  sun,  place  in 
an  upright  position  (Fig. 
i)  a  stick  about  three  feet  long,  and  trace  on 
the  surface  the  shadows  as  they  appear  at  different 
times  of  the  day.  A  little  study  will  enable  you  to 
use  the  shadows  for  telling  the  time.  Sun-dials  have 
been  used  from  the  beginning  of  time  and  they  have 
not  yet  passed  out  of  use.  They  may  still  be  seen  in 
188 


I. —  A      PRIMITIVE 
DIAL. 


THE  CLOCK 


a  few  public  places  (Fig.  2),  but  they  are  retained 
rather  as  curiosities  than  as  real  timekeepers.  For 
the  sun-dial  is  not  a  good  timekeeper  for  three  rea- 
sons:  (i)  it  will  not  tell  the  time  at  night;  (2)  it 
fails  in  the  daytime  when  the  sun  is  not  shining;  (3) 
it  can  never  be  used  inside  of  a  house. 

The  sun-dial  can  hardly  be  called  an  invention; 
it  is  rather  an  observation.  There  were,  however, 
inventions  for  measur-  mmm  _^_^_^____ 
ing  time  in  the  earliest 
period  of  man's  history. 
Among  the  oldest  of 
these  was  the  fire-clock, 
which  measured  time  by 
the  burning  away  of  a 
stick  or  a  candle.  The 
Pacific  islanders  still  use 
a  clock  of  this  kind. 
"  On  the  midrib  of  the 
long  palm-leaf  they  skewer  a  number  of  the  oily 
nuts  of  the  candle-nut-tree  and  light  the  upper  one." 
As  the  nuts  burn  off,  one  after  another,  they  mark 
the  passage  of  equal  portions  of  time.  Here  is  a 
clock  that  can  be  used  at  night  as  well  as  in  the  day- 
time, in  the  house  as  well  as  out  of  doors.  Mr. 
Walter  Hough  tells  us  that  Chinese  messengers  who 
have  but  a  short  period  to  sleep  place  a  lighted 
piece  of  joss-stick  between  their  toes  when  they  go  to 
bed.  The  burning  stick  serves  both  as  a  timepiece 
and  as  an  alarm-clock. 

189 


FIG.   2. —  A   MODERN   SUN-DIAL. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

Fire-clocks  of  one  kind  or  another  have  been  used 
among  primitive  people  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the 
globe,  and  their  use  has  continued  far  into  civilized 
times.  Alfred  the  Great  (900  A.  D.)  is  said  to  have 
measured  time  in  the  following  way:  "He  pro- 
cured as  much  wax  as  weighed  seventy-two  penny- 
weights, which  he  commanded  to  be  made  into  six 
candles,  each  twelve  inches  in  length  with  the  divi- 
sions of  inches  distinctly  marked  upon  it.  These 
being  lighted  one  after  another,  regularly  burnt  four 
hours  each,  at  the  rate  of  an  inch  for  every  twenty 
minutes.  Thus  the  six  candles  lasted  twenty-four 
hours."  1 

We  all  remember  Irving's  account  of  time-measure- 
ment in  early  New  York:  "  The  first  settlers  did  not 
regulate  their  time  by  hours,  but  pipes,  in  the  same 
manner  as  they  measure  distance  in  Holland  at  this 
very  time;  an  admirably  exact  measurement,  as  the 
pipe  in  the  mouth  of  a  true-born  Dutchman  is  never 
liable  to  those  accidents  and  irregularities  that  are 
continually  putting  our  clocks  out  of  order."  This, 
of  course,  is  not  serious,  yet  it  is  an  account  of  a  kind 
of  fire-clock  that  has  been  widely  used.  Even  to-day 
the  Koreans  reckon  time  by  the  number  of  pipes 
smoked. 

If  we  could  step  on  board  a  Malay  proa  we  should 
see  floating  in  a  bucket  of  water  a  cocoanut  shell 
having  a  small  perforation  through  which  the  water 
by  slow  degrees  finds  its  way  into  the  interior.  This 

1  Wood,  "  Curiosities  of  Clocks  and  Watches." 
190 


THE  CLOCK 


orifice  is  so  perforated  that  the  shell  will  fill  and  sink 
in  an  hour,  when  the  man  on  watch  calls  the  time  and 
sets  it  to  float  again.  This  sinking  cocoanut  shell, 
the  first  form  of  the  water-clock,  is  the  clock  from 
which  has  been  developed  the  timepiece  of  to-day. 
With  it,  therefore,  the  story  of  the  clock  really  be- 
gins. In  Northern  India  the  cocoanut  shell  is  re- 
placed by  a  copper  bowl  r. 

(Fig-  3)-  At  tne  m°- 
ment  the  sinking  occurs 
the  attendant  announces 
the  hour  by  striking 
upon  the  bowl. 

The  second  step  in 
the  development  of  the 
water-clock  was  made 
in  China  several  thou- 
sand years  ago.  In  the 
earlier  Chinese  clock 

the  water,  instead  of  finding  its  way  into  the  vessel 
from  the  outside,  was  placed  inside  and  allowed 
to  trickle  out  through  a  hole  in  the  bottom  and 
fall  into  a  vessel  below.  In  the  lower  vessel  was 
a  float  which  rose  with  the  water.  To  the 
float  was  attached  an  indicator  which  pointed 
out  the  hours  as  the  water  rose.  By  this  ar- 
rangement, when  the  upper  vessel  was  full,  the 
water,  by  reason  of  greater  pressure,  ran  out  faster 
at  first  than  at  any  other  time.  The  indicator,  there- 
fore, at  first  rose  faster  than  it  ought,  and  after  a 
191 


FIG.    3. —  AN    EARLY    FORM    OF   THE 
WATER-CLOCK. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


while  did  not  rise  as  fast  as  it  ought  to.  Alter 
centuries  of  experience  with  the  two-vessel  arrange- 
ment, a  third  vessel  was  brought  upon  the  scene. 
This  was  placed  above  the  upper  vessel,  which  now 
became  the  middle  vessel.  As  fast  as  water  flowed 

from  the  middle 
vessel  it  was  replac- 
ed by  a  stream  flow- 
i  n  g  from  the  one 
above  it.  The  depth 
of  the  water  in  the 
middle  vessel  did 
not  change,  and  the 
water  flowed  into 
the  lowest  vessel  at 
a  uniform  rate. 
Finally  a  fourth  ves- 
sel was  brought  into 
use.  The  Chinese 
water-clock  shown 
in  (Fig.  4)  has  been 
running  in  the  city 
of  Canton  for  near- 
ly six  hundred  years. 
Every  afternoon  at  five,  since  1321,  the  lowest  jar 
has  been  emptied  into  the  uppermost  one  and  the 
clock  thus  wound  up  for  another  day. 

To  follow  the  further  development  of  the  water- 
clock  we  must  pass  from  China  to  Greece.      In  their 
early  history  the  Greeks  had  nothing  better  than  the 
192 


FIG.     4. —  CHINESE     WATER-CLOCK     AT 
CANTON. 


THE  CLOCK 

sun-dial  with  which  to  measure  time.  About  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century  B.  C.  there  arose  at  Athens 
a  need  for  a  better  timepiece.  In 
the  public  assembly  the  orators  were 
consuming  too  much  time,  and  in 
the  courts  of  law  the  speeches  of 
the  lawyers  were  too  long.  It  was 
a  common  thing  for  a  lawyer  to  pj&  5_AN  £ARLy 
harangue  his  audience  for  seven  or  GREEK  CLEPSYDRA. 
eight  hours.  To  save  the  city  from  being  talked  to 
death  a  time-check  of  some  kind  became  necessary. 
The  sun-dial  would  not  answer,  for  the  sun  did  not 
always  shine,  even  in  sunny  Greece;  so  the  idea  of 
the  water-clock  was  borrowed.  A  certain  amount 
of  water  was  placed  in  an  amphora  (urn),  in  the 
bottom  of  which  was  a  small  hole  through  which  the 
water  might  slowly  flow  (Fig.  5).  When  the  am- 
phora was  empty  the  speaker  had  to  stop  talking. 
The  Greeks  called  the  water-clock  a  clepsydra,  which 
means  "  the  water  steals  away."  The  orator  whose 
time  was  limited  by  a  certain  amount  of  water  would 
keep  his  eye  on  the  clepsydra,  just  as  a  speaker  in  our 
time  keeps  his  eye  on  the  clock,  and  if  he  were  inter- 
rupted he  would  shout  to  the  attendant,  "  You  there, 
stop  the  water,"  or  would  say  to  the  one  who  inter- 
rupted him,  "  Remember,  sir,  you  are  in  my  water." 
The  story  goes  that  upon  one  occasion  the  speaker 
stopped  every  now  and  then  to  take  a  drink;  the 
orator's  speech,  it  seems,  was  as  dry  as  his  throat,  and 
a  bystander  cried  out :  "  Drink  out  of  the  clepsydra, 
13  193 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

and  then  you  will  give  pleasure  both  to  yourself  and 
to  your  audience." 

At  first  the  Greeks  used  a  simple  form  of  the 
clepsydra,  but  they  gradually  adopted  the  improve- 
ments made  by  the  Chinese,  and  finally  added  others. 
The  great  Plato  is  said  to  have  turned  his  attention 
to  commonplace  things  long  enough  to  invent  a  clep- 
sydra that  would  announce  the  hour  by  playing 
the  flute.  However  this  may  have 
been,  there  was  in  use  in  the 
Greek  world,  about  300  B.  c.,  a 
clepsydra  something  like  the  one 
shown  in  Fig.  6.  This  begins  to 
look  something  like  a  clock.  As 
the  water  drops  into  the  cylinder 
E  the  float  F  rises  and  turns  G, 
which  carries  the  hour  hand 
around.  Inside  of  the  funnel  A 
FIG.  6.— AN  IMPROVED  js  a  cone  #  wnich  can  be  raised 

GREEK   CLEPSYDRA. 

or  lowered  by  the  bar  D.  In  this 
way  the  dropping  of  the  water  is  regulated. 
Water  runs  to  the  funnel  through  //,  and  when 
the  funnel  is  full  the  superfluous  water  runs  off 
through  the  pipe  /,  and  thus  the  depth  of  the 
water  in  the  funnel  remains  the  same  and  the 
pressure  does  not  change.  Notice  that  when  the 
hand  in  this  old  clock  has  indicated  twelve  hours 
it  begins  to  count  over  again,  just  as  it  does  on  our 
clocks  to-day.  How  easily  it  would  have  been  to 
have  continued  the  numbers  on  to  twenty-four,  as 
194 


THE  CLOCK 

they  do  in  Italy,  and  on  the  railroads  in  parts  of 
Canada,  to-day. 

If  we  pass  from  Greece  to  Rome,  our  usual  route 
when  we  are  tracing  a  feature  of  our  civilization,  we 
find  that  the  Romans  were  slow  to  introduce  new 
methods  of  timekeeping.  The  first  public  sun-dial 
in  Rome  was  constructed  about  200  B.  c.,  an  event 
which  the  poet  Plautus  bewailed : 

Confound  the  man  who  first  found  out 

How  to  distinguish  hours!     Confound  them,  too 

Who  in  this  place  set  up  a  sun-dial 

To  cut  and  hack  my  days  so  wretchedly 

Into  small  portions!     When  I  was  a  boy 

My  stomach  was  my  sun-dial,  one  more  sure, 

Truer,  and  more  exact  than  any  of  them, 

This  dial  told  me  when  't  was  the  proper  time 

To  go  to  dinner. 

The  water-clock  was  brought  into  Rome  a  little 
later  than  the  sun-dial,  and  was  used  as  a  time-check 
upon  speakers  in  the  law  courts,  just  as  it  had  been 
in  Athens.  When  the  Romans  first  began  to  use 
the  clepsydra  it  was  already  a  very  good  clock. 
Whether  it  received  any  great  improvements  at  their 
hands  is  not  certain.  Improvements  must  have  been 
made  somewhere,  for  early  in  the  Middle  Ages  we 
find  clepsydras  in  forms  more  highly  developed  than 
they  were  in  ancient  times.  In  the  ninth  century  the 
Emperor  Charlemagne  received  as  gift  from  the 
King  of  Persia  a  most  interesting  timepiece  which 
195 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


was  worked  by  water.  "  The  dial  was  composed  of 
twelve  small  doors  which  represented  the  divisions 
of  the  hours;  each  door  opened  at  the  hour  it  was 
intended  to  represent,  and  out  of  it  came  the  same 
number  of  little  balls,  which  fell,  one  by  one  at  equal 
distances  of  time,  on  a  brass  drum.  It  might  be 
told  by  the  eye  what  hour  it  was  by  the  number  of 
doors  that  were  open;  and  by  the 
ear  by  the  number  of  balls  that  fell. 
When  it  was  twelve  o'clock,  twelve 
horsemen  in  miniature  issued  forth 
at  the  same  time,  and,  marching 
round  the  dial,  shut  all  the  doors." 
Less  wonderful  than  the  clock  of  the 
emperor,  but  more  useful  as  an  ob- 
ject of  study,  is  the  medieval  clepsy- 
dra shown  in  Figure  7.  This  looks 
more  than  ever  like  the  clock  we  are 
accustomed  to  see.  It  has  weights 
as  well  as  wheels.  As  the  float  A 
rises  with  the  water  it  allows  the 
FIG.  7.— A  MEDIE-  weight  C  to  descend  and  turns  the 

VAL  CLEPSYDRA.  .  e  . 

spindle  B  on  the  end  of  which 
is  the  hand  which  marks  the  hours.  Notice  care- 
fully that  this  is  partly  a  water-clock  and  partly  a 
weight-clock.  The  weight  in  its  descent  turns  the 
spindle;  the  water  regulates  the  rate  at  which  the 
weight  may  descend. 

The  water-clock  just  described  led  easily  and  di- 
rectly to  the  weight-clock.      Clockmakers  in  the  Mid- 
196 


THE  CLOCK 


die  Ages  for  centuries  tried  with  more  or  less 
success  to  make  clocks  that  would  run  by  means  of 
weights.  In  1370,  Henry  De  Vick,  a  German, 
succeeded  in  solving  the 
problem.  De  Vick  was 
brought  to  Paris  to  make 
a  clock  for  the  tower  of 
the  king's  palace,  and  Ke 
made  one  that  has  be- 
come famous.  In  a  some- 
what improved  form  it 
can  still  be  seen  in  Paris 
in  the  Palais  de  Justice. 
Let  us  remove  the  face  of 
this  celebrated  timepiece 
and  take  a  look  at  its 
works  (Fig.  8).  It  had 
a  striking  part,  and  a 
timekeeping  part,  each 
distinct  from  the  other. 
The  figure  shows  only  the 
timekeeping  part.  The 
weight  (A),  of  500 
pounds,  is  wound  up  by  a 
crank  (the  key)  at  P.  O  is  the  hour-hand. 


FIG.    8. —  DE   VICK'S    CLOCK.      THE 
FIRST  WEIGHT  CLOCK.     (l37O.) 


If  A 


is  allowed  to  descend,  you  can  easily  see  how  the 
whole  system  of  wheels  will  be  moved  —  and  that 
very  rapidly.  But  if  something  does  not  prevent,  A 
will  descend  faster  and  faster,  the  hour-hand  will  run 
faster  and  faster  and  the  clock  will  run  down  at  once. 
197 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

If  the  clock  is  to  run  at  a  unifrom  rate  and  for  any 
length  of  time,  the  power  of  the  weight  must  escape 
gradually.  In  the  clepsydra  (Fig.  i)  the  descent  of 
the  weight  was  controlled  by  the  size  of  the  stream 
of  flowing  water.  De  Vick  invented  a  substitute  for 
the  stream  of  flowing  water.  Fasten  your  attention 
upon  the  workings  of  the  saw-toothed  wheel  //  and 
the  upright  post  K,  which  moves  on  the  pivots  /  and 
k,  and  you  may  learn  what  he  did.  Fixed  to  the 
upper  part  of  the  post  K  is  a  beam  or  balance  LL, 
at  the  ends  of  \vhich  are  two  small  weights  m  and 
m,  and  projecting  from  the  post  in  different  direc- 
tions are  two  pallets  or  lips  i  and  h.  Now,  as  the 
top  of  the  wheel  //  turns  toward  you,  one  of  its 
teeth  catches  the  pallet  i  and  turns  the  post  A'  a  part 
of  the  way  round  toward  you.  Just  as  the  tooth 
escapes  from  i  a  tooth  at  the  bottom  of  //  (moving 
from  you)  catches  the  pallet  h  and  checks  the  re- 
volving post  and  turns  it  from  you.  Thus  as  // 
turns,  it  gives  a  to-and-fro  motion  to  the  post  K  and, 
consequently,  a  to-and-fro  motion  to  the  balance  LL. 
II  is  called  the  escapement  because  the  power  of  the 
descending  weight  gradually  escapes  from  its  teeth. 
In  the  clepsydra  the  trickling  of  water  regulated  the 
descent  of  the  weight;  in  De  Vick's  clock  the  trickling 
of  power  or  force  from  the  escapement  regulated  the 
descent  of  the  weight.  The  invention  of  this  escape- 
ment is  the  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  the  clock. 
The  king  was  much  pleased  with  De  Vick's  in- 
vention. He  gave  the  clockmaker  three  shillings  a 
198 


THE  CLOCK 

day,  and  allowed  him  to  sleep  in  the  clock  tower;  a 
scanty  reward  indeed  for  one  who  had  done  so  much 
for  the  world,  for  De  Vick's  invention  led  rapidly 
to  the  excellent  timepieces  of  to-day,  to  both  our 
watches  and  our  clocks.  After  the  appearance  of 
the  weight-clock,  the  water-clock  gradually  fell  into 
disuse,  and  all  the  ingenuity  of  the  clockmaker  was 
bestowed  upon  weights  and  wheels  and  escapements 
and  balances.  A  cen- 
tury of  experimenting 
resulted  in  a  clock  with- 
out a  weight  (Fig.  9). 
In  this  timekeeper  you 
recognize  the  begin- 
nings of  the  modern 
watch.  The  uncoiling  FIG.  9. —  A  CLOCK  WITHOUT 

of   a   spring  drove   the 

machinery.  Instead  of  the  balancing  beam  with  its 
weights  as  in  De  Vick's  clock,  a  balance  wheel  is 
used.  The  escapement  is  the  same  as  in  the  first 
weight-clock.  The  busy  and  delicately-hung  little 
balance  wheel  in  your  watch  is  a  growth  from 
De  Vick's  clumsy  balance  beam.  The  spring-clock 
would  run  in  any  position.  Because  it  could  be  car- 
ried about  it  led  almost  at  once  to  the  watch.  Many 
places  claim  the  distinction  of  having  made  the  first 
watch,  but  it  seems  that  the  honor  belongs  to  the 
city  of  Niirenburg.  "  Niirenburg  eggs,"  as  the  first 
portable  clocks  were  called,  were  made  as  early  as 
1470.  The  first  watches  were  large,  uncouth  affairs, 
199 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 


FIG.  10. —  A  WATCH 
OF  THE  l6TH 
CENTURY. 


resembling  small  table  clocks  but  by  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century  small  watches  with  works  of  brass 
and  cases  of  gold  or  silver  were 
manufactured  (Fig.  10). 

The  last  important  step  in  the 
development  of  the  clock  was 
taken  when  the  pendulum  was 
brought  into  use.  The  history  of 
the  pendulum  will  always  include 
a  story  told  by  Galileo.  This 
great  astronomer,  the  story  runs, 
while  worshiping  in  the  cathe- 
dral at  Pisa  one  day,  found  the  service  dull,  and 
began  to  observe  the  swinging  of  the  lamps  which 
were  suspended  from  the  ceiling.  Using  his  pulse 
as  a  timekeeper  he  learned  that  where  the  chains  were 
of  the  same  length  the  lamp  swayed  to  and  fro  in 
equal  length  of  time,  whether 
they  traveled  through  a  short 
space  or  a  long  space.  This  ob- 
servation set  the  philosopher  to 
experimenting  with  pendulums 
of  different  lengths.  Among 
the  many  things  he  learned  one 
of  the  most  important  was  this: 
a  pendulum  thirty-nine  inches  in 
length  will  make  one  vibration  in 
just  one  second  of  time.  Now, 
if  the  pendulum  could  only  be 
kept  swinging  and  its  vibrations 
200 


FIG.         1 1. —  GALILEO  S 
PENDULUM.       (1650.) 


THE  CLOCK 


counted  it  would  serve  as  a  clock.  Galileo,  of 
course,  saw  this,  and  he  caused  to  be  made  a  machine 
for  keeping  the  pendulum  in  motion  (Fig.  n),  but 
he  did  not  make  a  clock;  he  did  not  connect  his 
pendulum  with  the  works 
of  a  clock.  This,  how- 
ever, was  done  about  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  although  it  is 
somewhat  difficult  to  tell 
who  was  the  first  to  do  it. 
The  honor  is  claimed  by 
an  Englishman,  a  French- 
man, and  a  Dutchman. 
The  truth  is,  clockmak- 
ers  throughout  Europe 
were  trying  at  the  same 
time  to  make  the  best  of 
the  discoveries  of  Gali- 
leo, and  several  of  them 
about  the  same  time  con- 
structed clocks  with  pen- 
dulums. The  one  who 
seems  to  have  succeeded 
first  was  Christian  Huygens,  a  Dutch  astronomer, 
who,  in  1656,  constructed  a  clock,  the  motions  of 
which  were  regulated  by  the  swinging  of  a 
pendulum  (Fig.  12).  The  weight  was  attached 
to  a  cord  passing  over  a  pulley  and  gave  motion  to 
all  the  wheels,  as  in  De  Vick's  clock.  Like  De 
201 


FIG.    12. —  THE    FIRST    PENDULUM 
CLOCK.       (1656.) 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

Vick's  clock  also  Huygens's  clock  had  its  escapement 
wheel  acting  upon  two  pallets.  In  the  Dutchman's 
clock,  however,  the  escapement,  instead  of  turning  a 
balance  beam  to  and  fro,  acted  upon  the  pendulum, 
giving  it  enough  motion  to  keep  it  from  stopping. 

We  need  not  carry  our  story  further  than  the  in- 
vention of  Huygens.  Timepieces  are  cheaper  and 
better  made  and  more  accurate  than  they  were  two 
hundred  years  ago,  but  no  really  important  discovery 
has  been  made  since  the  pendulum  was  introduced. 


202 


THE  BOOK 

WHAT  is  a  book?  It  is  an  invention  by 
means  of  which  thought  is  recorded,  and 
carried  about  in  the  world,  and  handed  down  from 
one  age  to  another.  Almost  as  soon  as  men  began 
to  think  they  began  to  make  books  and  they  will 
probably  continue  to  make  them  as  long  as  they  con- 
tinue to  think.  The  story  of  the  Book,  therefore, 
takes  us  back  to  the  very  beginning  of  human  exist- 
ence. 

At  first  thought  was  recorded  and  preserved  by 
tradition.  An  account  of  a  nation's  deeds,  its  laws, 
the  precepts  of  its  religion  were  stamped,  printed,  on 
the  memory  of  persons  specially  trained  to  memorize 
these  things  and  hand  them  down  by  word  of  mouth 
from  generation  to  generation  (Fig.  i).  These 
persons  were  usually  priests,  who  underwent  long 
years  of  daily  and  hourly  training  in  memorizing 
what  was  to  be  handed  down.  The  Sanskrit  Vedas, 
the  sacked  scripture  of  the  Hindoos,  were  for  many 
centuries  transmitted  by  tradition,  and  it  is  said  it 
took  forty  years  to  memorize  them.  It  is  a  wonder 
it  did  not  take  longer,  for  the  Vedas  make  a  volume 
as  large  as  our  Bible.  It  is  believed  that  primitive 
people  everywhere  first  adopted  the  method  of  tra- 
203 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

dition  to  record  and  preserve  the  thought  which  they 
did  not  wish  to  perish.     We  may  say,  then,  that  the 


FIG.    I. —  TRADITION. 

A  Mural  Decoration  in  the  Library  of  Congress. 

first  book  was  written  on  the  tablet  of  the  human 
memory. 

The  first  step  in  the  growth  of  the  book  was  taken 
when  memory  aids  were  invented.  Sometimes  we 
tie  a  knot  in  a  handkerchief  to  help  us  to  remember 
something.  Now,  it  was  just  by  tying  knots  that 
primitive  man  first  lent  assistance  to  the  memory. 
The  first  material  book  was  doubtless  a  series  of 
knots  well  represented  by  the  quipu  (Fig.  2)  of  the 
ancient  Peruvians.  This  curious-looking  book  was 
written  (tied)  by  one  known  as  the  officer  of  the 
knots.  It  contains  an  account  of  the  strength  of  the 
Peruvian  army,  although  it  is  confessed  that  its  exact 
meaning  cannot  be  made  out.  It  was  not  intended  to 
204 


THE  BOOK 

be  read  by  any  one  who  was  not  a  keeper  of  the  knots. 
Books  made  of  knots  were  used  by  nearly  all  the 
ancient  peoples  of  South  America  and  by  some  of 
those  of  Asia.  Akin  to  the  knotted  cord  is  the 
notched  stick,  which  is  still  used  in  Australia  by  the 
savages  to  assist  the  memory  of  one  who  has  a  mes- 
sage to  carry.  Figure  3  shows  a  variety  of  such 
message-sticks.  The  lowest  one — a  crooked  branch 
of  a  tree — contains  an  invitation  to  a  dancing  party. 
The  notches  are  read  by  the  messenger.  The 
notched  stick  as  an  aid  to  memory  is  not  confined 
to  savage  races.  Many  a  highly  civilized  baker  has 


FIG.     2.— THE     QUIPU     OF  FIG.  3.— MESSAGE-STICKS. 

THE   PERUVIANS. 

kept  his  accounts  by  making  notches  in  sticks  and  so 
has  many  a  modern  dairyman,  as  he  has  delivered 
milk  from  door  to  door. 

Memory  aids  were   followed  by  picture-writing. 
To  express  thought  by  means  of  pictures  is  an  in- 
stinct shared  alike  by  the  lowest  savage  and  the  most 
enlightened  people.     All  over  the  earth  we  find  ex- 
205 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

amples  of  early  picture-writing.  A  beloved  chief 
had  died,  a  fierce  battle  had  been  fought,  an  exciting 
chase  had  occurred :  promptly  the  event  was  pictured 
on  a  stone  or  on  the  skin  of  some  animal.  Pages 
might  be  filled  with  illustrations  of  these  primitive 
picture-books,  but  we  must  be 
content  with  a  single  specimen 
(Fig.  4).  This  was  found 
painted  on  a  rock  in  Califor- 
nia :  "  We  selected  this  as  a 
camming  place,  but  we  have 
found  nothing''  say  the  hu- 
man  figures  /,  g,  h,  i.  The 
upturned  palms  say  plainly, 

"nothing,  nothing."  "One  of  our  comrades  (d) 
has  died  of  starvation,"  say  the  three  lank  figures 
at  c  pointing  to  their  own  lean  bodies.  "  We  deeply 
mourn  his  loss,"  says  the  sorrow-stricken  a.  "  We 
have  gone  northward,"  says  ;',  his  distinguished  arm 
extended  to  the  north. 

Practice  in  picture-making  was  bound  to  lead  to 
shorter  methods  of  expressing  ideas.  It  was  soon 
found  that  reduced  pictures,  or  picture-signs,  would 
suffice  to  express  ideas.  Thus,  if  the  idea  of  sorrow 
was  to  be  expressed  it  was  not  necessary  to  draw  an 
elaborate  picture  of  a  sorrowful  looking  man  like  a 
in  Figure  4;  a  weeping  eye  would  express  the  idea 
just  as  well.  Instead  of  numerous  figures  (e,  f,  g, 
h,  i)  weeping  and  saying,  u  nothing  here,"  a  single 
pair  of  empty  palms  would  say  the  same  thing  just 
206 


THE  BOOK 

as  clearly.  In  this  way  a  pair  of  clasped  hands 
came  to  mean  "friendship";  two  trees  meant  "a 
forest  " ;  a  calf  running  toward  water  meant  "  thirst." 
These  picture-signs,  of  course,  assumed  the  form  in 
which  they  could  be  most  easily  and  rapidly  drawn. 
The  weeping  eye  became  •ff^* ;  the  pair  of  ex- 
tended palms  J\  ;  the  forest  T  T  ;  thirst  '^r' 

j        ^  I      I  /VWVA  • 

A  simple  picture  of  this  kind  became  a  fixed  con- 
ventional sign  for  certain  ideas;  it  was  always  drawn 
in  the  same  way  and  it  always  stood  for  the  same 
idea. 

Picture-signs  (ideographs)  followed  picture-writ- 
ing in  almost  every  country  where  the  people  were 
progressive.  China  was  writing  its  books  with 
picture-signs  many  thousands  of  years  ago,  and  it  is 
writing  them  in  the  same  clumsy  way  still.  Even  in 
highly  civilized  countries  picture-signs  have  not  been 
entirely  abandoned.  Examine  the  advertising  page 
of  a  newspaper  or  observe  the  business  signs  on  the 
street  and  you  will  find  picture-signs — pictures  that 
are  always  made  in  the  same  way  and  that  always 
stand  for  the  same  thing. 

Each  of  the  great  nations  of  antiquity  had  its  own 
peculiar  system  of  writing,  but  the  system  that  should 
interest  us  most  is  that  of  ancient  Egypt,  for  it  is  to 
ancient  Egypt  that  you  must  look  for  the  origin  of 
the  book  that  is  in  your  hands.  The  book  in  Egypt 
passed  through  the  stages  of  tradition,  memory  aids, 
picture-writing  and  picture-signs  (ideographs)  ;  then 
207 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

it  passed  into  the  alphabetic  stage.  Since  the  alpha- 
bet is  certainly  the  most  wonderful  and  perhaps  the 
most  useful  of  all  inventions,  and  since  it  is  an  Egyp- 
tian invention,  it  is  well  worth  your  while  to  learn 
how  the  Egyptian  picture-signs  —  hieroglyphics  they 
are  called  —  grew  into  letters,  but  if  you  wish  to 
understand  the  change  you  will  have  to  give  the  sub- 
ject very  close  attention. 

Well,  here  was  the  Egyptian  system  of  picture- 
signs  consisting  of  several  thousand  pictures  of  birds, 
beasts,  reptiles,  insects,  trees,  flowers,  and  objects  of 
almost  every  description.  Now  suppose  you  were 
employed  in  writing  English  by  means  of  several 
thousand  picture-signs  and  in  the  course  of  an  hour 
would  have  to  write  the  words  manage,  mansion, 
mantle,  mandate,  might  it  not  occur  to  you  that  it 
would  be  a  good  thing  if  that  sound  man  could  be 

represented   by   the   picture-sign    for   man     (  T  )  ? 

And  if  you  had  to  write  treacle,  treason,  treaty, 
might  you  not  feel  like  beginning  these  words  with 

a  tree    (  T  )  ?     At  some  time  in  the  remote  past 

Egyptian  scribes  —  priests  they  usually  were  —  no- 
ticing that  syllables  identical  in  sound  were  con- 
stantly recurring  in  the  different  words,  began  to 
represent  these  syllable-sounds  that  occurred  most 
frequently  by  picture-signs.1  The  picture-sign  sub- 
stituted for  a  syllable-sound  was  placed  in  the  word 

1  The  illustration  is  taken   from  Keary's  "  Dawn  of  History." 
208 


THE  BOOK 

not  because  it  stood  for  an  idea,  but  because  it  stood 
for  a  sound,  just  as  in  the  case  supposed  above  you 

would  use  the  T  or  the  f  not  because  it  repre- 
sented a  thought,  but  because  it  had  a  certain  sound. 
So  certain  Egyptian  picture-signs  began  to  be  used 
to  represent  the  sound  of  certain  syllables.  The 
picture-signs  thus  chosen  were  called  phonograms. 

The  phonogram  led  to  the  alphabet.  The  scribes 
in  seeking  a  way  to  shorten  their  work  found  that 
the  syllable  itself  could  be  broken  up  into  separate 
sounds.  For  example,  when  they  came  to  the  sylla- 
ble whose  sound  is  spelled  by  our  three  letters 
pad,  they  found  that  it  had  three  distinct  sounds, 
namely:  (i)  one  a  lip  sound  which  could  be  rep- 
resented by  the  first  sound  of  the  picture-sign  1—4 

(a  door)  ;  (2)  one  an  open-throat  or  vowel  sound 
which  could  be  represented  by  the  first  sound  of  the 


picture-sign       X?X       (an  eagle);  (3)  one  a  dental 

•""^jCL. 

sound  which  could  be  represented  by  the  first  sound 
in  the  picture-sign  f<^-f  (a  hand).  So  the  scribes 
wrote  the  syllable  (p-a-d)  with  the  three  characters 

And  so  with  all  the  other 


sounds  in  the  Egyptian  language;  each  was  repre- 
sented   by    one    of    the    picture-signs    already    used. 
Since  there  were  only  about  twenty-five  distinct  ele- 
14  209 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

mentary  sounds  in  the  Egyptian  language,  twenty- 
five  picture-signs  were  sufficient  to  represent  any 
sound  or  any  word  in  the  language.  These  twenty- 
five  picture-sounds  were  the  letters  of  the  Egyptian 
alphabet.  Twenty-five  characters  instead  of  thou- 
sands! Now  the  Egyptian  youth  could  learn  to 
read  in  three  or  four  years,  whereas  under  the  old 
system  it  took  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  just  as  it  takes 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  for  the  Chinese  youth  to  learn 
to  read  well. 

Now  that  its  origin  has  been  explained,  the  story 
of  the  alphabet  may  be  rapidly  told.  Indeed,  its 
whole  history  can  be  learned  from  Figure  5.  In 
column  (a)  are  the  three  Egyptian  picture-signs  re- 
ferred to  above.  Column  (b)  shows  how  the  rapid 
writing  of  the  priests  reduced  the  old  hieroglyphics 

to  script;  C3  became  <£&?        /^x      hecame  2L- 

^""  «^nfl_ 

and  yO-^  became  ^^^  .  The  Phoenicians,  who 
were  great  travelers,  visited  Egypt  at  a  very  early 
date  and  borrowed  not  only  the  idea  of  the  alphabet, 
but  also  the  forms  of  the  Egyptian  letters,  as  column 
c  shows.  Column  d  confirms  the  words  of  Herod- 
otus, who  tells  us  that  the  Greeks  borrowed  their 
alphabet  from  the  Phoenicians.  Column  e  shows 
that  the  Greeks  handed  the  alphabet  on  to  the 
Romans,  who  handed  it  on  to  us.  Thus  the  three 
letters  p,  a,  d  come  straight  from  the  Egyptians  and 
were  originally  a  door,  an  t'tigli',  and  a  hand,  re- 

210 


THE  BOOK 


spectively.  As  it  is  with  these  three  letters,  so  it  is 
with  nearly  all  the  letters  of  our  alphabet.  If  the 
letters  on  the  page  before  you  could  be  suddenly 
changed  to  their  original  form,  you  would  behold  a 
motley  collection  of  birds,  serpents,  animals,  tools, 
and  articles  of  household  use. 


S-" 

lif 


(b) 


(c) 


(cl) 


B 


9 


A 


FIG.  5. —  SHOWING  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  THREE 
LETTERS,  P,  A,  AND  D. 

We  must  look  to  Egypt  for  the  origin  of  the  ma- 
terial form  of  our  book  as  well  as  for  the  origin 
of  our  alphabetical  characters.  Before  history  had 
dawned  the  Egyptians  had  covered  over  with  their 
writing  nearly  all  the  available  surface  on  their  pyra- 
mids and  in  their  temples.  At  a  time  too  far  back 
for  a  date  necessity  seems  to  have  compelled  them 
211 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

to  seek  a  substitute  for  stone.  This  they  found  in 
the  papyrus  plant,  which  grew  in  great  luxuriance 
in  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  They  placed  side  by  side 
strips  of  the  pith  of  the  papyrus,  and  across  these  at 


FIG.  6. —  AN  ANCIENT  VOLUME. 

right  angles  they  placed  another  layer  of  strips. 
The  two  layers  were  then  glued  together  and  pressed 
until  a  smooth  surface  was  formed.  This  made  one 
sheet.  To  make  a  book  a  number  of  sheets  were 
fastened  together  end  to  end.  When  in  book  form 
212 


THE  BOOK 

the  papyrus  was  wound  around  a  stick  and  kept  in 
the  form  of  a  roll,  a  volume  (Fig.  6).  The  roll 
was  usually  eight  or  ten  inches  wide,  but  its  length 
might  be  upward  of  a  hundred  feet.  This  papyrus 
roll  was  the  parent  of  our  modern  paper  book,  as 
the  word  papyrus  is  the  original  of  our  word  paper, 
The  pen  used  in  writing  upon  papyrus  was  a  split 
reed  (calamus),  and  the  ink  a  mixture  of  soot  and 
gum. 


FIG.    /. —  THE   OLDEST   BOOK   IN    THE   WORLD.     WRITTEN   NEARLY  S,OOO 
YEARS   AGO. 


The  most  ancient  volume  in  the  world  is  an  Egyp- 
tian papyrus  (Fig.  7)  now  in  the  National  Library 
of  France.  It  was  written  nearly  5,000  years  ago 
by  an  aged  sage  and  contains  precepts  of  right  living. 
In  this  oldest  of  volumes  we  find  this  priceless  gem : 

"  If  thou  art  become  great,  if  after  being  in  pov- 
erty thou  hast  amassed  riches  and  art  become  the 
first  in  the  city,  if  thou  art  known  for  thy  wealth  and 
art  become  a  great  lord,  let  not  thy  heart  become 
213 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

proud,  for  it  is  God  who  is  the  author  of  them  for 
thee." 

In  Assyria  and  in  other  ancient  countries  of 
Central  Asia  letters  were  engraved  on  cylinders 
and  these  were  rolled  upon  slabs  of  soft  clay,  mak- 
ing an  impression  of  the  raised  letters,  just  as 
we  make  an  impression  with  the  seal  of  a  ring.  In 
the  ruins  of  the  cities  of  Assyria  these  old  clay 
books  may  be  found  by  the  cart-load.  The  Assyrian 
cylinder  was  really  the  first  printing  press.  In  an- 
cient Greece  and  Rome  wooden  tablets  within  which 
was  spread  a  thin  layer  of  wax  were  used  as  a  writ- 
ing surface  in  schools  and  in  the  business  world. 
The  writing  on  the  wax  was  done  with  a  sharp- 
pointed  instrument  of  bone  or  iron  called  the  stylus. 
But  next  to  papyrus  the  most  important  writing  ma- 
terial of  antiquity  was  parchment,  or  the  prepared 
skin  of  young  calves  and  kids.  The  invention  of 
parchment  is  said  to  have  been  due  to  the  literary 
ambitions  of  two  kings,  the  king  of  Persia  and  the 
king  of  Egypt.  The  king  of  Pergamus  (250  B.C.) 
wishing  to  have  the  finest  and  largest  library  in  the 
world  was  consuming  enormous  quantities  of  pa- 
pyrus. The  king  of  Egypt,  who  also  wished  to  have 
the  finest  library  in  the  world,  in  order  to  cripple 
the  plans  of  his  literary  rival,  issued  a  command  for- 
bidding the  exportation  of  papyrus  from  Egypt. 
The  king  of  Pergamus,  being  unable  to  get  pa- 
pyrus except  from  Egypt,  caused  the  skins  of  sheep 
to  be  prepared,  and  on  these  skins  books  for  his 
214 


THE  BOOK 

library  continued  to  be  written.  The  prepared 
skins  received  the  name  of  pergamena,  because  they 
were  made  in  Pergamus,  and  from  pergamena  we 
get  the  word  parchment.  This  is  the  story  that  has 
come  down  to  us  to  explain  the  origin  of  parchment, 
but  it  cannot  be  accepted  as  wholly  true.  We  know 
very  well  that  the  Old  Testament  was  written  in  gold 
on  a  roll  of  skins  long  before  there  was  a  king  of 
Pergamus.  Indeed,  writing  was  done  on  skins  as 
far  back  as  the  picture-writing  period. 

After  the  invention  of  the  alphabet  and  of  paper 
(papyrus)  books  multiplied  as  never  before.  "Of 
making  many  books  there  is  no  end,"  exclaimed 
Solomon  a  thousand  years  before  the  Christian 
era.  Greece  in  her  early  day  was  slow  to  make 
books,  but  after  she  learned  from  the  Phoenicians 
(800  B.C.)  how  to  use  an  alphabet  she  made  up  for 
lost  time.  In  600  B.C.  there  was  a  public  library  at 
Athens,  and  200  years  later  the  Greeks  had  written 
more  good  books  than  all  the  other  countries  in  the 
world  combined. 

But  the  most  productive  of  ancient  book-makers 
were  the  Romans.  In  Rome  publishing  houses  were 
flourishing  in  the  time  of  Cicero  (50  B.C.).  Atticus, 
one  of  Cicero's  best  friends,  was  a  publisher.  Let 
us  see  how  a  book  was  made  in  his  establishment. 
Of  course,  there  were  no  type-setters  or  printing- 
presses.  Every  book  was  a  manuscript;  every  word 
of  every  copy  had  to  be  written  with  a  pen.  The 
writing  was  sometimes  done  by  slaves  trained  to 
215 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

write  neatly  and  rapidly.  We  may  imagine  50  or 
100  slaves  sitting  at  desks  in  a  room  writing  to  the 
dictation  of  the  reader.  Now  if  Atticus  had  ten 
readers  each  of  whom  dictated  to  100  slaves  it  took 
only  two  or  three  days  for  the  publication  of  1,000 
copies  of  one  of  his  friend  Cicero's  books.  Of 
course  every  copy  would  not  be  perfect.  The  slave 
would  sometimes  make  blunders  and  write  what  the 
reader  did  not  dictate.  But  books  in  our  own  time 
are  not  free  of  errors.  An  English  poet  recently 
wrote: 

"  Like  dew-drops  upon  fresh  blown  roses." 

In  print  the  first  letter  of  the  last  word  in  the  line 
appeared  as  n  instead  of  r.  This  mistake  disfigured 
thousands  of  copies.  In  the  Roman  publishing 
house  such  a  blunder  marred  only  one  copy. 

You  can  readily  see  that  by  methods  just  described 
books  could  be  made  in  great  numbers.  And  so 
they  were.  Slaves  were  cheap  and  numerous  and 
the  cost  of  publication  was  small.  It  is  estimated 
that  a  good  sized  volume  in  Nero's  time  (50  A.D.) 
would  sell  for  a  shilling.  Books  were  cheaper  in 
those  days  than  they  had  ever  been  before  and  al- 
most as  cheap  as  they  are  to-day,  perhaps.  The 
Roman  world  became  satiated  with  reading  matter. 
The  poet  Martial  exclaimed,  "  Every  one  has  me 
in  his  pocket,  every  one  has  me  in  his  hand."  Books 
became  a  drug  on  the  market  and  could  be  sold  only 
to  grocers  for  "  wrapping  up  pastry  and  spices." 
216 


THE  BOOK 

But  a  time  was  to  come  when  books  would  not  be 
so   plentiful   and   cheap.     With   the   overthrow   of 


FIG.  8. —  BOOK-MAKING  IN  THE   MIDDLE  AGES. 

Rome  (476  A.o.)  culture  received  a  blow  from 
which  it  did  not  recover  for  a  thousand  years.  The 
barbarian  invaders  of  Southern  Europe  destroyed  all 
the  books  they  could  find  and  caused  the  writers  of 
books  to  flee  within  the  walls  of  the  churches. 
Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  nearly  all  the  writing 
in  Europe  was  done  in  the  religious  houses  of  monks 
(Fig.  8),  and  nearly  all  the  books  written  were  of  a 
religious  nature.  The  monks  worked  with  the  great- 
est patience  and  care  upon  their  manuscripts.  They 
often  wrote  on  vellum  (calf-skin  parchment)  and 
illuminated  the  page  with  beautiful  colors  and 
adorned  it  with  artistic  figures. 

The  manuscript  volumes  of  the  dark  ages  were 
beautiful' and  magnificent,  but  their  cost  was  so  great 
217 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

that  only  the  most  wealthy  could  buy.  A  Bible 
would  sometimes  cost  thousands  of  dollars.  Along 
in  the  I4th  and  I5th  centuries  Europe  began  to  thirst 
for  knowledge  and  there  arose  a  demand  for  cheap 
books.  How  could  the  demand  be  met?  There 
were  now  no  hordes  of  intelligent  slaves  who  could 
be  put  to  work  with  their  pens,  and  without  slave 
labor  the  cost  of  the  written  book  could  not  be 
greatly  reduced.  Invention,  as  always,  came  to  the 
rescue  and  gave  the  world  what  it  wanted. 

In  the  first  place,  writing  material  was  made 
cheaper  by  the  invention  of  paper-making.  The 
wasp  in  making  its  nest  had  given  a  hint  for  paper- 
making,  but  man  was  extremely  slow  to  take  the 
hint.  The  Chinese  had  done  something  in  the  way 
of  making  paper  from  the  bark  of  trees  as  early  as 
the  first  century,  but  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of 
the  1 3th  century  that  paper  began  to  be  manufac- 
tured in  Europe  from  hemp,  rags,  linen,  and  cotton. 

In  the  second  place,  printing  was  invented.     On 

a  strip  of  transparent  paper  write  the  word  post. 

Now  turn  the  strip  over  from  right  to  left  and  trace 

the  letters  on  the  smooth  surface  of  a  block  of  wood. 

__-.-_    Remove  the  paper  and  you  will  have 

/^f  JM    the  result  shown  in  Figure  9.     With  a 

sharp   knife   cut   out   the   wood    from 

around    the    letters.     Ink    the    raised 

letters  and  press  upon  them  a  piece  of  paper.     You 

have  printed  the  word  "  post  "  in  precisely  the  way 

the  first  books  were  printed.      In  the   I3th  century 

218  • 


THE  BOOK 

fancy  designs  were  engraved  on  wood  and  by  the  aid 
of  ink  the  figures  were  stamped  on  silk  and  linen. 
In  the  1 4th  century  playing  cards  and  books  were 
printed  on  engraved  blocks  in  the  manner  the  word 
"post"  was  printed  above.  (Fig.  10.)  The 
block-book  was  the  first  step  in  the  art  of  printing. 

The  block-book  decreased  the  cost 
of  a  book,  for  when  a  page  was  once 
engraved  as  many  impressions  could 
be  taken  as  were  wanted,  yet  it  did 
not  meet  the  necessities  of  the  time. 
In  the  middle  of  the  I5th  century 
the  desire  for  reading  began  to  re- 
semble a  frenzy  and  the  books  that 
could  be  got  hold  of  "  were  as  in- 
sufficient to  slake  the  thirsty  craving 
for  religious  and  material  knowl- 
edge as  a  few  rain  drops  to  quench 
the  burning  thirst  of  the  traveler  in 
the  desert  who  seeks  for  long,  deep- 
draughts  at  copious  springs  of  living 
water."  To  meet  the  demand  of  the  time  book- 
makers everywhere  were  trying  to  improve  on  the 
block-making  process  and  by  the  end  of  the  century 
the  book  as  we  have  it  to-day  was  being  made 
throughout  all  Europe. 

In  what  did  the  improvement  consist?     First  let 

us  call  to  mind  what  the  book-maker  in  the  early 

part  of  the  I5th  century  had  to  begin  with;  he  had 

paper,  he  had  printing-ink,  he  had  skill  in  engrav- 

219 


FIG.  IO. —  A  BLOCK 
PRINT  CONTAIN- 
ING THE  AL- 
PHABET USED 
BY  CHILDREN 
WHEN  LEARN- 
ING TO  READ. 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

ing  whole  pages  for  block-books,  and  he  had  a  rude 
kind  of  printing-press.  The  improvement  consisted 
in  this:  Instead  of  engraving  a  whole  page  on  a 
block,  single  letters  were  engraved  on  little  blocks 
called  types,  and  when  a  word  or  a  line  or  a  page 


FIG.    II. —  AN    EARLY    PRINTING   PRESS. 

was  to  be  printed  these  types  were  set  in  the  position 
desired;  in  other  words,  the  improvement  consisted 
in  the  invention  of  moveable  types.  The  types  were 
first  made  of  wood  and  afterward  of  metal. 

The  great  advantage  of  the  moveable  types  over 
the  block-book  is  easily  seen.  A  block  containing, 
say,  the  word  "  post  "  is  useless  except  for  printing 
the  word  post;  but  divide  it  into  four  blocks,  each 
containing  a  letter:  now  you  can  print  post,  spot, 
tops,  stop,  top,  sop,  sot,  pot,  so,  to  and  so  forth. 

The  exact  date  of  the  invention  of  moveable  types 
220 


THE  BOOK 

cannot  be  determined.  We  can  only  say  that  they 
were  first  used  between  1450  and  1460.  Nor  can 
we  tell  who  invented  them.  The  Dutch  claim  that 
Lawrence  Koster  of  Harlem  (Holland)  made  some 
moveable  types  as  early  as  1430,  and  that  John 
Faust,  an  employee,  stole  them  and  carried  them 
to  Mayence  (Germany),  where  John  Gutenberg 
learned  the  secret  of  printing  with  them.  The  Ger- 
mans claim  that  Gutenberg  was  the  real  inventor. 
Much  can  be  said  in  behalf  of  both  claims.  What 
we  really  know  is  that  the  earliest  complete  book 
printed  on  moveable  types  was  a  Bible  which  came 
from  the  press  of  John  Gutenberg  in  1455. 

Since  1450  there  has  been  no  discovery  that  has 
changed  the  character  of  the  printed  volume.  There 
have  been  wonderful  improvements  in  the  processes 
of  making  and  setting  type,  and  printing-presses 
(Fig.  11)  have  become  marvels  of  mechanical  skill, 
but  the  book  of  to-day  is  essentially  like  the  book  of 
four  hundred  years  ago.  The  tablet  of  the  memory, 
the  knotted  cord  and  notched  stick,  the  uncanny 
picture-writing,  the  clumsy  picture-sign,  the  alphabet, 
the  manuscript  volume,  the  printed  block-book  and 
the  volume  before  you  bring  to  an  end  the  story  of 
the  book. 


221 


THE  MESSAGE 

MEN  had  not  been  living  together  long  in  a 
state  of  society  before  they  found  it  necessary 
to  communicate  with  their  fellow-men  at  a  distance 
and  in  order  to  do  this  the  message  was  invented. 
We  have  seen  (p.  205)  that  among  certain  tribes  of 
savages  notched  sticks  bearing  messages  were  sent 
from  one  tribe  to  another.  Among  the  ancient 
Peruvians  the  message  took  the  form  of  the  curious 
looking  quipu.  After  the  alphabet  had  been  in- 
vented and  papyrus  had  come  into  use  as  a  writing 
material,  the  message  took  the  form  of  a  written 
document  and  resembled  somewhat  the  modern  letter. 
The  ancient  Egyptians,  as  we 
would  expect,  were  the  first  to  make 
use  of  the  letter  in  the  sending  of 
messages  (Fig.  i).  The  ancient 
Hebrews  were  also  familiar  with  the 
FIG.  i.— A  LETTER  letter  as  a  means  of  communication. 

aERNTEREG°YPTAN"     We  Te*d  in  the  book  of  Chronicles 

how  the  post  went  with  the  letters 

of  the  king  and  his  princes  throughout  all  Israel. 

The  word  post,  as  used  here  and  elsewhere  in  the 

Bible,    signifies    a    runner,    that    is,    one    specially 

trained    to    deliver    letters    or    despatches    speedily 

222 


THE  MESSAGE 

by  running.  Thus  Jeremiah  predicted  that  after 
the  fall  of  Babylon  "  one  post  shall  run  to  meet 
another  and  one  messenger  to  meet  another  to  show 
the  King  that  his  city  is  taken."  Although  we  fre- 
quently read  of  the  post  in  Biblical  times  we  are  no- 
where told  that  the  ordinary  people  enjoyed  the 
privileges  of  the  post.  In  olden  times  it  was  only 
kings  and  princes  and  persons  of  high  degree  that 
sent  and  received  letters. 

In  nearly  all  the  countries  of  antiquity  there  was 
an  organized  postal  system  which  was  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  govern- 
ment and  which  car- 
r  i  e  d  only  govern- 
ment messages.  In 
Egypt  there  were 
postal  chariots  (Fig. 

.  ,        f.          FIG.    2. —  AN  EGYPTIAN   MAIL  CART. 

2  )      of     wonderful 

lightness  designed  especially  for  carrying  the  let- 
ters of  the  king  at  the  greatest  possible  speed. 
In  ancient  Judea  messengers  must  have  traveled 
very  fast,  for  Job,  in  his  old  age,  says:  "Now 
my  days  are  swifter  than  the  post,  they  flee  away." 
In  ancient  Persia  the  postal  system  awakened 
the  admiration  of  Herodotus.  "  Nothing  mortal," 
says  this  old  Greek  historian,  "  travels  so  fast 
as  these  Persian  messengers.  The  entire  plan 
is  a  Persian  invention  and  this  is  the  method 
of  it.  Along  the  whole  line  of  road  there  are 
men  stationed  with  horses,  the  number  of  sta- 
223 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

tions  being  equal  to  the  number  of  days  which  the 
journey  takes,  allowing  a  man  and  a  horse  to  each 
day,  and  these  men  will  not  be  hindered  from  accom- 
plishing at  their  best  speed  the  distance  they  will 
have  to  go  either  by  snow,  or  rain,  or  heat,  or  by 
the  darkness  of  night.  The  first  rider  delivers  the 
message  to  the  second  and  the  second  to  the  third, 
and  so  it  is  borne  from  hand  to  hand  along  the  whole- 
line." 

The  postal  system  which  Herodotus  found  in 
Persia  was  better  than  the  system  which  existed  in 
his  own  country  for  the  reason  that  the  Greeks  re- 
lied upon  human  messengers 
rather  than  upon  horses  to 
carry  their  messages.  Young 
Greeks  were  specially  trained 

^'g*  ^  aS  runners  ^or  tne 
postal  service  and  Greek  his- 
tory contains  accounts  of  the 
marvelous  endurance  and 
swiftness  of  those  employed 

to  carry  messages.  After  the  defeat  of  the 
Persians  by  the  Greeks  at  Marathon  (490  B.C.)  a 
runner  carried  the  news  southward  and  did  not  pause 
for  rest  until  he  reached  Athens  when  he  shouted 
the  word  "  Victory !  "  and  expired,  being  overcome 
by  fatigue.  Another  Greek,  Phillipides  by  name, 
was  despatched  from  Athens  to  Sparta  to  ask  the 
Spartans  for  aid  in  the  war  which  the  Athenians  were 
carrying  on  against  Persia,  and  the  distance  between 
224 


THE  MESSAGE 

the  two  cities  —  about  140  miles  —  was  accom- 
plished by  the  runner  in  less  than  two  days. 

But  the  best  postal  system  of  ancient  times  was 
the  one  which  was  organized  by  the  Romans.  As 
one  country  after  another 
was  brought  under  the  do- 
minion of  Rome  it  became 
more  and  more  necessary 
for  the  Roman  government 
to  keep  in  close  touch  with 
all  the  parts  of  the  vast 
empire.  Accordingly,  by  FIG.  4.— A  LETTER  CARRIER  OF 

,  ...  ,  ANCIENT   ROME. 

the  time  of  Augustus    (14 

A.D. ),  there  was  established  throughout  the  Ro- 
man world  a  fully  organized  and  well-equipped  sys- 
tem of  posts.  Along  the  magnificent  roads  which 
led  out  from  Rome  there  were  built  at  regular 
distances  stations,  or  post-houses,  where  horses 
and  riders  were  stationed  for  the  purpose  of  receiv- 
ing the  messages  of  the  government  and  hurry- 
ing them  along  to  the  place  of  their  destination. 
The  stations  were  only  five  or  six  miles  apart  and 
each  station  was  provided  with  a  large  number  of 
horses  and  riders.  By  the  frequent  changes  of 
horses  a  letter  could  be  hurried  along  with  consider- 
able speed  (Fig.  4).  "  By  the  help  of  the  relays," 
says  Gibbon,  "  it  was  easy  to  travel  a  hundred  miles 
in  a  day." 

When  Rome  fell  (476  A.D.)  before  the  attacks  of 
barbarous  tribes  her  excellent  postal  system  fell  with 
'*  225 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

her  and  many  centuries  passed  before  messages  could 
again  be  regularly  and  quickly  despatched  between 
widely  separated  points.  Charles  the  Great,  the 
emperor  of  the  Franks,  established  (800  A.D.)  a 
postal  system  in  his  empire  but  the  service  did  not 
long  survive  the  great  ruler.  In  the  I3th  century 
the  merchants  of  the  Hanse  towns  of  Northern  Ger- 
many could  communicate  with  each  other  somewhat 
regularly  by  letter,  but  the  ordinary  people  of  these 
towns  did  not  enjoy  the  privileges  of  a  postal  service. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  as  in  the  ancient  times,  the  pub- 
lic post  was  established  solely  for  the  benefit  of  the 
government.  Private  messages  had  to  be  sent  as  best 
they  could  be  by  private  messengers  and  at  private 
expense.  As  late  as  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII 
(1509-1547)  the  only  regular  post  route  in  England 
was  one  which  was  established  for  the  exclusive  use 
of  the  king. 

But  the  time  was  soon  to  come  when  ordinary 
citizens  as  well  as  officers  of  state  were  to  share  in 
the  benefits  of  a  postal  system.  In  1635  Charles  I 
of  England  gave  orders  that  a  post  should  run  night 
and  day  between  Edinburgh  and  London  and  that 
postmen  should  take  with  them  all  such  letters  as 
might  be  directed  to  towns  on  or  near  the  road  which 
connected  the  two  cities.  The  rate  of  postage  1  was 

1  In  the  payment  of  the  postage  no  stamps  were  as  yet  used. 
Indeed  the  postage  stamp  is  a  late  invention.     Postage  stamps 
were  not   used   in   England  until   the .  year   1840,   while   in   the 
United  States  they  were  not  regularly  used  until  1847. 
226 


THE  MESSAGE 

fixed  at  two  pence  for  a  single  letter  when  the  dis- 
tance was  under  sixty  miles;  four  pence  when  the 
distance  was  between  60  and  140  miles;  six  pence 
for  any  longer  distance  in  England;  and  eight  pence 
from  London  to  any  place  in  Scotland.  It  was 
ordered  that  only  messengers  of  the  king  should  be 
allowed  to  carry  letters  for  profit  unless  to  places  to 
which  the  king's  post  did  not  go.  Here  was  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  postal  system  and  the  mod- 
ern post-office.  Henceforth  the  post  was  to  carry 
not  only  the  king's  messages,  but  the  messages  of  all 
people  who  would  pay  the  required  postage. 

The  example  set  by  England  in  throwing  the  post 
open  to  the  public  was  followed  by  other  nations, 
and  before  a  hundred  years  had  passed  nearly  all 
the  civilized  countries  of  the  world  were  enjoying 
the  privilege  and  blessings  of  a  well-organized  postal 
system.  It  is  true  that  the  post  for  a  long  time 
moved  very  slowly  —  a  hundred  miles  a  day  was 
regarded  as  a  flying  rate  —  and  postage  for  a  long 
time  was  very  high,  but  the  service  grew  constantly 
better  and  by  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century 
trains  were  dashing  along  with  the  mails  at  the  rate 
of  a  thousand  miles  a  day  and  postage  within  a  coun- 
try had  been  reduced  to  two  cents,1  while  for  a  nickel 

1  In  1840,  the  English  government  following  the  recommenda- 
tions of  Sir  Rowland  Hill,  adopted  throughout  the  United  King- 
dom a  uniform  rate  of  one  penny  for  letters  not  exceeding  half 
an  ounce  in  weight,  and  after  this  cheap  postage  became  the 
rule  in  all  countries. 

227 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

a  letter  could  be  sent  to  the  most  distant  parts  of  the 
globe. 

Thus  far  we  have  traced  the  history  of  only  one 
kind  of  message,  the  kind  that  has  the  form  of  a 
written  document  and  that  is  conveyed  by  a  human 
carrier  over  land  and  water  from  one  place  to  an- 
other. But  there  is  a  kind  of  message  which  is  not 
borne  along  by  human  hands  and  which  does  not 
travel  on  land  or  water.  This  is  the  telegraph,1  the 
message  which  darts  through  space  and  is  delivered 
at  a  distant  point  almost  at  the  very  instant  at  which 
it  is  sent. 

The  first  telegraph  was  an  aerial  message  and  con- 
sisted of  a  signal  made  by  a  flash  of  light.  From  the 
earliest  times  men  have  used  fire  signals  as  a  means 
of  sending  messages  to  distant  points.  When  the 
city  of  Troy  in  Asia  Minor  was  captured  by  the 
Greeks  (about  noo  B.C.)  torches  flashing  their 
light  from  one  mountain  top  to  another  quickly  car- 
ried the  news  to  the  far-off  cities  of  Greece.  The 
ancient  Greeks  gave  a  great  deal  of  attention  to  the 
art  of  signaling  by  fire  and  they  invented  several 
very  ingenious  systems  of  aerial  telegraphy.  The 
most  interesting  of  these  systems  is  one  invented  and 
described  by  the  Greek  historian  Polybius,  who 
flourished  about  150  B.C.  When  signaling  with 
fire  Polybius  arranged  for  using  two  groups  of 
torches  with  five  torches  in  each  group,  and  for  the 
purpose  of  understanding  the  signals  he  divided  the 

1  The  verb  telegraph  means  to  write  at  a  distance  afar  off. 
228 


THE  MESSAGE 

letters  of  the  alphabet  into  five  groups  of  five  letters 
each.1  The  torches  were  raised  according  to  a  plan 
that  made  it  possible  to  flash  a  signal  that  would  in- 
dicate any  letter  of  the  alphabet  that  might  be  de- 
sired. Thus  if  the  desired  letter  was  the  third  one 
of  the  first  group  —  that  is,  the  letter  k  —  one  torch 


FIG.  5. —  TELEGRAPHING  BY  MEANS  OF  FIRE,    150  B.C. 

would  show  which  group  was  meant  and  three  torches 
would  show  which  letter  was  meant  (Fig.  5).  In 
theory  this  system  was  perfect,  for  it  provided  for 
sending  any  kind  of  message  whatever.  But  in  prac- 

1  As  there  are  only  24  letters  in  the  Greek  alphabet,  the  last 
group  was  one  letter  short,  but  this  did  not  interfere  with  the 
working  of  the  system, 

229 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

tice  it  had  little  value,  for  it  required  so  many  torches 
and  signals  that  an  entire  night  was  consumed  in 
spelling  out  a  few  words. 

Although  the  elaborate  system  of  aerial  telegraph 
proposed  by  PolyJbius  was  not  generally  adopted, 
nevertheless  for  centuries,  both  in  ancient  times  and 
during  the  middle  ages,  the  fire  signal  was  every- 
where used  for  the  quick  despatch  of  important  news. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  inventors  began  to  devise 
new  systems  of  aerial  telegraphy.  In  1663,  the 
Marquis  of  Worcester,  who  was  always  busy  with 
some  great  invention  (p.  178),  announced  to  the 
world  that  he  had  discovered  a  plan  by  which  one 
could  talk  with  another  as  far  as  the  eye  could  dis- 
tinguish between  black  and  white,  and  that  this  con- 
versation could  be  carried  on  by  night  as  well  as  by 
day,  even  though  the  night  were  as  dark  and  as 
black  as  pitch.  But  the  telegraph  of  the  Marquis 
was  like  many  of  his  other  inventions  —  it  was 
chiefly  on  paper.  In  1864,  Dr.  Robert  Hooke  of 
England  invented  a  method  by  which  aerial  messages 
could  be  sent  a  distance  of  thirty  or  forty  miles. 
His  plan  was  to  erect  on  hill  tops  a  series  of  high 
poles  connected  above  by  cross-pieces  and  by  means 
of  pulleys  suspend  from  the  cross-pieces  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet  which  would  spell  out  the  message 
(Fig.  6).  In  order  to  read  the  letters  at  such  great 
distances  the  eye  was  assisted  by  the  telescope,  an 
instrument  which  had  recently  been  invented. 

But  the  greatest  improvement  in  aerial  telegraphy 
230 


THE  MESSAGE 

was  made  during  the  French  Revolution  by  Claude 
Chappe,  a  Frenchman  living  in  Paris.  In  1793, 
Chappe  erected  on  the  roof  of  the  palace  of  the 
Louvre  a  post  at  the  top  of  which  was  a  cross-beam 
which  moved  on  a  pivot  about  the  center  like  a  scale 
beam  (Fig.  7).  The  cross-beam  could  be  moved 


FIG.  6. —  HOOKE'S  AE- 
RIAL       TELEGRAPH. 


1684. 


FIG.  7.—  CHAPPED 
AERIAL  TELE- 
GRAPH, 1793. 


horizontally,  vertically  or  at  almost  any  angle  by 
means  of  cords.  Chappe  invented  a  number  of  po- 
sitions for  these  arms  and  each  position  stood  for  a 
certain  letter  of  the  alphabet.  Machines  of  this 
kind  were  erected  on  towers  at  places  from  nine  to 
twelve  miles  apart  and  soon  Chappe  was  sending 
messages  from  Paris  to  the  city  of  Lille,  130  miles 
away.  The  messages  were  sent  with  great  rapidity, 
for  they  passed  from  one  tower  to  another  with  the 
231 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

velocity  of  light  —  about  185,000  miles  a  second  — 
and  it  was  possible  for  the  operator  to  spell  out 
about  100  words  in  an  hour.  And  Chappe's  mes- 
sages could  be  sent  at  any  time,  day  or  night,  for 
the  arms  of  the  machine  were  furnished  with  Argand 
lamps  for  night  work. 

Chappe's  invention  was  the  greatest  which  had 
thus  far  been  made  in  the  history  of  the  message. 
The  new  system  of  telegraphy  proved  to  be  entirely 
successful  and  practical  and  it  was  not  long  before 
machines  similar  to  those  invented  by  Chappe  were 
in  use  in  England  and  other  countries.  In  1828, 
an  English  writer  had  the  following  words  of  praise 
for  aerial  telegraphy :  "  Telegraphs  have  now  been 
brought  to  so  great  a  degree  of  perfection  that  they 
carry  information  so  speedily  and  distinctly  and  are 
so  much  simplified  that  they  can  be  constructed  and 
maintained  at  little  expense.  The  advantages,  too, 
which  result  from  their  use  are  almost  inconceivable. 
Not  to  speak  of  the  speed  with  which  information  is 
communicated  and  orders  given  in  time  of  war,  by 
means  of  these  aerial  signals  the  whole  kingdom 
could  be  prepared  in  an  instant  to  oppose  an  invading 
enemy." 

But  the  aerial  telegraph  was  soon  to  have  a  most 
dangerous  rival.  This  rival  was  the  electric  tele- 
graph. Many  years  before  the  invention  of  Chappe 
men  had  been  experimenting  with  electricity  with  a 
view  of  sending  messages  by  means  of  an  electric 
current.  These  experiments  began  in  1728  when 
232 


THE  MESSAGE 

an  Englishman  named  Gray  caused  electricity  to 
produce  motion  in  light  bodies  located  at  a  distance 
of  more  than  600  feet.  In  1748,  the  great  Benja- 
min Franklin,  who  conducted  so  many  wonderful 
experiments  in  electricity,  sent  an  electric  current 
through  a  wire  which  was  stretched  across  the  Schuyl- 
kill  River  and  set  fire  to  some  alcohol  which  was  at 
the  opposite  end  of  the  wire.  We  may  regard  the 
flash  of  alcohol  as  a  telegraph,  for  it  could  have  been 
used  as  a  signal.  In  1819,  Professor  Oersted  of 
Copenhagen  brought  a  magnetic  needle  close  to  a 
body  through  which  an  electric  current  was  passing 
and  he  observed  that  the  needle  had  a  tendency  to 
place  itself  at  right  angles  to  the  electrified  body. 
In  1825,  William  Sturgeon  of  England  coiled  a 
copper  wire  around  a  bar  of  soft  iron  and  found 
that  when  a  current  of  electricity  was  sent  through 
the  wire  the  bar  of  iron  be- 
came a  temporary  magnet; 
that  is,  the  bar  of  iron  at- 
tracted a  needle  when  the 
current  was  passing  through 
the  wire  and  ceased  to  at- 
tract it  when  the  current 
was  broken  (Fig.  8). 
These  discoveries  of  Oer- 
sted and  Sturgeon  led  to  the  invention  known 
as  the  electro-magnet  and  the  electro-magnet 
led  rapidly  to  the  invention  of  the  electric  tele- 
graph, for  by  means  of  the  electro-magnet  a  sig- 
233 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

nal  can  be  sent  to  a  distance  as  far  as  a  cur- 
rent of  electricity  can  be  sent  along  a  wire.  In 
1831,  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  one  of  America's 
most  distinguished  scientists,  discovered  a  method  by 


FIG.    Q.— PROFESSOR     HENRY'S    ELECTRO- MAl.NKT, 
1832. 

which  an  electric  current  could  be  sent  along  a  wire 
for  a  very  great  distance.  The  next  year  Henry 
constructed  and  operated  an  apparatus  which  was 
essentially  an  electric  telegraph  (Pig.  9).  "I  ar- 
ranged," he  said,  "  around  one  of  the  upper  rooms 
of  the  Albany  Academy  a  wire  of  more  than  a  mile 
in  length  through  which  I  was  enabled  to  make 
signals  by  sounding  a  bell.  The  mechanical  ar- 
rangement for  effecting  this  object  was  simply  a  steel 
bar  permanently  magnetized,  supported  on  a  pivot 
and  placed  with  its  north  end  between  the  two  arms 
of  a  horse-shoe  magnet.  When  the  latter  was  ex- 
cited by  the  current  the  end  of  the  bar  thus  placed 
was  attracted  by  one  arm  of  the  horse-shoe  and  re- 
234 


THE  MESSAGE 

pelled  by  the  other  and  was  thus  caused  to  move  in 
a  horizontal  plane  and  its  further  extremity  to  strike 
a  bell  suitably  adjusted."  Thus  by  1832  the  elec- 
tric current  had  been  used  for  sending  signals  at  a 
distance  and  the  electric  telegraph  had  been  invented. 
But  the  electric  telegraph  was  still  only  a  toy. 
How  could  it  be  made  a  practical  machine?  How 
could  it  be  used  for  sending  messages  in  a  satisfac- 
tory manner?  Inventors  everywhere  worked  dili- 
gently to  discover  a  satisfactory  method  of  signaling 
and  many  ingenious  systems  were  invented.  As 
early  as  1837  a  telegraph  line  was  established  be- 
tween Paddington,  England  and  Drayton  —  a  dis- 
tance of  13  miles  —  and  messages  were  sent  over 
the  wire.  But  the  line  failed  to  give  satisfaction 
and  its  use  was  discontinued.  The  honor  of  invent- 
ing the  first  really  practical  and  useful  system  of 
electrical  telegraphy  was  at  last  won  by  an  American, 
S.  F.  B.  Morse,  a  painter  and  professor  of  literature 
in  the  University  of  the  City  of  New  York.  In 
1832  Morse  began  to  think  about  a  plan  for  record- 
ing signals  sent  by  electricity  and  by  1837  he  was 
about  ready  to  take  out  a  patent  for  making  signals 
41  by  the  mechanical  force  of  electro-magnetic  mo- 
tion." Morse  was  a  poor  man  and  he  lacked  the 
means  of  conducting  his  experiments.  He  was 
fortunate,  however,  in  making  the  acquaintance  and 
gaining  the  confidence  of  Alfred  Vail,  a  student  of 
the  University.  Vail  furnished  the  money  for  the 
experiments  and  assisted  Morse  in  perfecting  his 
235 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

system.  Indeed  some  of  the  most  original  and  valu- 
able features  of  Morse's  system  were  invented  by 
young  Vail  and  not  by  Morse.  In  the  face  of  much 
discouragement  and  bad  luck  Morse  and  Vail  worked 
patiently  on  together  and  by  1843  their  invention 
was  completed. 

The  main  feature  of  Morse's  system  was  to  use 
the  electric  current  for  sending  an  alphabetical  code 
consisting  of  certain  combinations  of  "  dots  and 
dashes."  The  "  dots  "  were  simply  clicking  sounds 
and  the  "  dashes  "  were  simply  intervals  between 
the  clicking  sounds.  The  sounds  were  made  by 
closing  and  breaking  the  current  by  means  of  a  key 
or  button  (Fig.  10).  If  the  sender  of  the  message 
pressed  upon  the  key  and  immediately  released  it 


FIG.    10. —  THE  KEY   USED  BY   MORSE. 

he  made  at  the  other  end  of  the  line  a  sharp  click 
which  was  called  a  "  dot,"  and  a  single  dot  accord- 
ing to  the  code  was  the  letter  E.  If  the  sender  of 
the  message  pressed  upon  the  key  and  held  it  down 
for  a  moment  he  made  what  was  called  a  "  dash," 
and  a  single  dash  according  to  the  code  was  the  letter 
236 


THE  MESSAGE 

T.     Thus  by  means  of  "  dots  and  dashes  "  any  letter 
of  the  alphabet  could  be  speedily  sent. 

Morse  applied  to  Congress  to  aid  him  in  his  plans 
and  in  1843  ne  secured  an  appropriation  of  $30,000 


FIG.    II. —  MORSES  TELEGRAPHIC  INSTRUMENT. 

for  establishing  a  telegraph  line  between  Baltimore 
and  Washington.  Morse  and  Vail  now  hurried  the 
great  work  on  and  by  May,  1844,  the  wires  had 
been  stretched  between  the  two  cities  and  the  instru' 
ments  were  ready  for  trial.  And  such  heavy,  clumsy 
affairs  the  instruments  (Fig.  n)  were!  "The  re- 
ceiving apparatus  weighed  185  pounds  and  it 
required  the  strength  of  two  strong  men  to  handle 
it.  At  the  present  day  an  equally  effective  magnet 
237 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

need  not  weigh  more  than  four  ounces  and  might  be 
carried  in  the  vest  pocket."  But,  awkward  and 
clumsy  as  it  was,  the  new  telegraph  did  its  work 
well.  On  May  24,  1844,  Morse  sent  from  Wash- 
ington the  historic  message,  "  What  hath  God 
wrought?"  (Fig.  12)  and  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye  it  was  received  by  Vail  at  Baltimore,  forty  miles 
away. 


vr         <&       a. 
$ 


FIG.   12. —  THE  FIRST  TET.KGRAPHIC   MF.SSAGE  SENT  FROM    WASHINGTON 
TO  BALTIMORE,    MAY   24,    1-S44. 

The  Morse  system  proved  to  be  profitable  as  well 
as  successful  and  after  1844  the  electric  telegraph 
was  soon  in  general  use  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
In  the  United  States  cities  were  rapidly  connected 
by  wire  and  by  1860  all  the  principal  places  in  the 
country  could  communicate  with  each  other  by  tele- 
graph. In  1 86 1,  a  telegraph  line  extended  across 
the  continent  and  connected  New  York  and  San 
Francisco.  Five  years  later,  thanks  to  the  perse- 
verance and  energy  of  Cyrus  W.  Field,  of  New 
York,  the  Old  World  and  the  New  were  joined  to- 
gether by  a  telegraphic  cable  passing  through  the 
waters  of  the  Atlantic  from  a  point  on  the  coast  of 
238 


THE  MESSAGE 

Ireland  to  a  point  on  the  coast  of  Newfoundland. 
With  the  laying  of  this  cable,  in  1866,  all  parts  of 
the  world  were  brought  into  telegraphic  communica- 
tion and  it  seemed  that  the  last  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  message  had  been  taken. 

But  the  story  of  the  Message  did  not  end  with  the 
invention  of  the  telegraph  and  the  laying  of  the 
Atlantic  cable.  Almost  as  soon  as  inventors  had 
learned  how  to  send  a  current  along  a  wire  and  make 
signals  at  a  distance  they  began  trying  experiments 
to  see  if  they  could  not  also  send  sounds,  especially 
the  sound  of  the  human  voice,  along  a  wire;  as  soon 
as  they  had  made  the  telegraph  they  began  to  try  to 
make  the  telephone.1  In  1855  Professor  Wheat- 
stone  of  England  invented  an  instrument  by  means 
of  which  musical  sounds  made  in  one  part  of  a 
building  were  carried  noiselessly  along  a  wire 
through  several  intervening  halls  and  reproduced  at 
the  other  end  of  the  wire  in  a  distant  part  of  the 
building.  About  the  same  time  a  Frenchman  named 
Bourseul  produced  a  device  by  which  a  disk  vibra- 
ting under  the  influence  of  the  human  voice  would, 
by  means  of  an  electric  current,  produce  similar 
vibrations  of  a  disk  located  at  a  distance. 

About  1874  Professor  Alexander  Graham  Bell, 
of  Boston,  seized  upon  an  idea  similar  to  that  of 
Bourseul's.  Bell  saw  in  the  vibrating  disk  a  resem- 
blance to  the  drum  of  the  human  ear.  In  imagina- 

1  Just  as  the  word  telegraph  means  to  "  write  afar  off,"  so 
the  word  telephone  means  to  "sound  afar  off." 

239 


STORIES  OF  USEFUL  INVENTIONS 

tion  he  beheld  "  two  iron  disks,  or  ear  drums,  far 
apart  and  connected  by  an  electrified  wire,  catching 
vibrations  of  sound  at  one  end  and  reproducing  them 
at  the  other."  With  this  conception  in  mind  he 
went  to  work  to  construct  an  apparatus  that  would 
actually  catch  the  sounds  of  the  voice  and  reproduce 
them  at  a  distance.  Bell,  like  Morse,  was  without 
means  to  conduct  his  experiments,  but  friends  came 
to  his  aid  and  furnished 
him  with  the  necessary 
money  and  by  1876  his 
labors  had  resulted  in  mak- 
ing a  machine  that  would 
carry  the  human  voice;  he 
had  invented  the  telephone. 
At  first  the  telephone  was 
only  a  toy  and  would  op- 


ING  OVER  THE  FIRST  LONG  but   as   improvements  were 

^".£*SS!EA'E>,de    the    distances    grew 

CHICAGO.  greater  and  greater  until  at 

last  one  could  talk  in  Boston  and  be  heard  in  Den- 

ver, or  talk  in  New  York  and  be  heard  in  London. 

The  telephone  grew  rapidly  into  favor  as  a  means  of 

communication  and  in  a  short  time  it  was  used  more 

than  the  telegraph.      It  is  estimated  that  in  the  entire 

world  about  ten  billion  conversations  are  held  over 

the  telephone  in  the  course  of  a  single  year. 

As  wonderful  as  the  telephone  was  it  was  quickly 
followed  by  an  invention  even  more  wonderful.     Al- 
240 


THE  MESSAGE 

most  as  soon  as  men  had  -thoroughly  mastered  the 
art  of  sending  messages  by  the  aid  of  wires  they  set 
about  trying  to  find  a  way  by  which  messages  could 
be  sent  long  distances  without  any  wires  at  all.  In 
1889,  Heinrich  Hertz,  a  German  scientist,  showed 
that  electric  waves  could  be  sent  out  in  all  directions 
just  as  light  waves  go  out  in  all  directions.  He  also 
showed  how  these  waves  might  be  produced  and 
how  they  might  be  detected 
or  caught  as  they  passed 
through  space.  In  1896, 
William  Marconi,  an 
Italian  electrician,  making 
use  of  the  facts  discovered 
by  Hertz,  sent  a  message  a 
distance  of  300  feet  without 
the  use  of  wires.  This  was 

the  first  wireless  telegraph.    FIG-  14-— A  WIRELESS  TELE- 
TV,  .  .  r    i  •  GRAPH   STATION. 

Marconi   continued  his   ex- 
periments, sending  wireless  messages  between  places 
further  and  further  apart,  and  by  1911  he  was  able  to 
signal  without  cables  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

And  now  it  seems  that  the  wireless  telegraph  is 
to  be  followed  by  an  invention  still  more  wonderful. 
Men  are  now  working  upon  a  wireless  telephone. 
Already  it  is  possible  to  talk  without  the  aid  of 
wires  between  places  so  far  apart  as  Newark  and 
Philadelphia,  and  many  inventors  believe  that  it  is 
only  a  matter  of  time  when  the  wireless  telephone 
will  be  used  side  by  side  with  the  wireless  telegraph. 
16  241 


INDEX 


Aerial  messages,  228. 
Aerial  telegraphy,  229-233. 
African  loom,  115. 
Alfred  the  Great,  196. 
Alphabet,  208-211. 
Alphabetical  Code,  229,  236. 
Amphora,   193. 
Anacharsis,  170. 
Anchor,  169,  170. 
Arch,  135,  137. 
Arc-light,  36. 
Argand,  34. 
Arkwright,  119. 
Atrium,  16. 
Automobile,  161. 
Axle,   147. 


Balance-wheel     (of    a    watch), 

199. 

Bamboo  dwelling,  128. 
Basket  weaving,  no. 
Batten  (of  loom),  115. 
Beam   (of  plow),  75,  80. 
Bell,  Alexander  Graham,  239. 
Bellows,  43,  47. 
Bessemer,  Sir  Henry,  51. 
"  Black  room,"  16. 


Blast-furnace,   46-52. 
Block-book,  219. 
BOAT,  history  of,  166-186. 
Boiling,  15. 
Bolting   (flour),  107. 
BOOK,  history  of,  203-221. 
Bourseul's  telephone,  239. 
Branca's  engine,  58,  71. 
Brazier,   18. 
Bresnier,  163,  164. 
Bronze,  38-40. 
Bronze  Age,  38. 
Burning  glass,  9. 


Cable,  Atlantic,  238. 

Calamus,  213. 

Candles,  30-32,  190. 

Canoe,  168. 

Capital   (of  column),  133. 

Car,  electric,  161. 

CARRIAGE,  history  of,  144-165. 

Cart,   147-151. 

Cast  iron,  47. 

Cave  dwellings,  125. 

Chappe,   Claude,   231. 

Charcoal,  42,  48,  49. 

Charlemagne's  clock,  196. 

Chariots,    151-152. 

Charlotte  Dundas,  182, 


243 


244 


INDEX 


Chemical  matches,  9. 
Chilcoot  loom,  113. 
Chimneys,    21. 
China,  175,  191. 
Clepsydra,   193-195. 
Clermont,  the,   183. 
CLOCK,  history  of,  187-202. 
Cliff  dwellings,   125. 
Coach,  153. 
Coke,  49. 

Cologne,  cathedral,   138. 
Colonial  architecture,  141. 
Columns,    131,    132. 
Compass,   mariner's,   175. 
Complete  harvester,  95. 
Condenser,  69. 
Cooking,    15,    19. 
Corinthian  column,  133. 
Cradle   (for  scythe),  86. 
Cradle  scythe,   87. 
Cugnot's  steam-engine,  156. 
Cutter   (for  reaper),  90,  92. 

D 

Darby,  Abraham,  49. 
Deck   (of  a  boat),  172. 
De  Vick,  Henry,  197. 
Digging-stick,  74. 
Doric  column,  132. 
Drag,  147. 
Dudley,  Dud,  49. 
Dutch  plow,  79. 


Edison,  Thomas,   37. 
Egypt     (ancient),    76,    85,     128, 
151,   153,  208,  211,  222. 


Electric  car,  161. 

Electric   light,  36. 

Electric  stove,  27. 

Electric  telegraph,  232-239. 

Electro-magnet,  232. 

Elevator  architecture,   142. 

England,  22,  49,  59,  89,  176,  178, 

227. 

Ericsson,  John,   184. 
Escapement,  198. 


Faust,  John,  221. 
Felly,    152. 

Field,  Cyrus  W.,  238. 
Firebrands,  4. 
Fire-clock,   189. 
Fire  drill,  6. 
Fireflies,  28. 
Fireplace,  14,  20. 
Fire  signals,  228. 
Fitch,  John,   181. 
Flying-machine,  163. 
Flying  shuttle,  116. 
FORGE,  history  of  38-53. 
France,  23,   178. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  233. 
Friction-chemical  match,  10. 
Fulton,  Robert,  18*. 
Furnaces,  25,  46. 


Gable,   131,   136. 

Galley,  171. 

Gang  plow,  78,  83. 

Gas,    35. 

Germany,  46,  221. 

Gothic  architecture,  137. 


INDEX 


245 


Gray's  electric  telegraph,  233. 
Greeks     (ancient),    18,    32,    57, 

86,    131,    152,    171,    192,    215, 

224. 
Gutenberg,  John,  221. 

H 

Haimault  scythe,  87. 

Hargreaves,   119. 

Harvester,  complete,  95. 

Heating,  7. 

Hebrews      (ancient),     86,      102, 

222. 

Heddle,   112,   114. 
Henry,  Joseph,  234. 
Hero's  Engine,  55,  71. 
Hertz,  Heinrich,  241. 
Hieroglyphics,    208. 
Hill,  Sir  Rowland,  227. 
Hooke,  Robert,  230. 
Hopper    (for  mill),  too. 
Horse,  146. 

Horseless  carriage,   161. 
Hot  blast,  50. 
HOUSE,  history  of,  123-147. 
Hub,  151. 
Hussey,  Obed,  91. 
Huygens,    Christian,    201. 
Hypocaust,  18. 


Ideographs,  207. 
Incandescent  light,  37. 
Industrial    revolution,    119,    158. 
Ionic  column,  133. 
Iron  Age,  44-52- 
IRON,  history  of,  41-63. 
Iron   plow,  81. 


J 

Jacquard's  attachment,  122. 
Jacquard,  Joseph,  120. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  81. 
Job's  plow,  75. 
Jouffroy,  Marquis,   178. 


Katta,  74. 
Kay,  John,  116. 
Keel,  169. 

Knocking-stone,    97. 
Koster,    Laurence,    221. 
Knots   (for  writing),  204. 


Lake  dwellings,  126. 
LAMP,  history  of,  28-37. 
Langley,  Professor,  165. 
Lathe   (of  loom),  115. 
Letter,  222. 

Livingstone   (quoted),  99. 
Llama,  145. 
Locomotive,   156-161. 
LOOM,  history  of,   109-122. 

M 

McCormick,  Cyrus,  91. 
Magnetic  needle,   175. 
Manuscript  volumes,  217. 
Marconi,  William,  240. 
Mariner's  compass,  175. 
MATCH,  history  of,  4-12. 
Memory  aids,  204. 
MESSAGE,    history    of    the,    222- 

241. 
Message  sticks,  205. 


246 


INDEX 


Meteoric  iron,  41. 
MILL,  history  of,  97-108. 
Millstone,    100. 
Mortar,  97. 
Moldboards,  78,  81. 
Morse,   S.   F.   B.,  235. 
Moveable  types,  220. 
Murdock,  William,  35. 

N 

Newbold,   Charles,   82. 
Newcomen,  Thomas,  62. 
Neilson,  49. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  156. 
"  Niirenburg  eggs,"  199. 


Oarlock,  168. 
Oersted,  Professor,  233. 
Ogle,  Henry,  90. 
Ore   (iron),  41. 


Phonograms,  209. 

Phosphorus  matches,   n. 

Picture   signs,   206. 

Pig  iron,  47. 

Piston,    62. 

Plato,  194. 

Pliny,  76,  89. 

Pliny's  plow,  77. 

PLOW,  history  of,  73-84. 

Pointed   arch,   137. 

Polybius,  228. 

Post,  222. 

Postage,  227. 

Postage  stamps,  226. 

Postal    systems,   223-228. 

Potter,   Humphrey,  64,  69. 

Power-loom,  119. 

Printing,  218. 

Propellers,   184. 

Pueblo  loom,   113. 


Quipu,  204. 


Pack  (for  burdens),  145. 
Paddle-wheel,  183,  184. 
Paper-making,  218. 
Papin,  Denis,  61,   178. 
Papyrus,  212. 
Parchment,  214. 
Parsons,  C.  A.,  71. 
Pendulum,  200. 
Penny  postage,  227. 
Percussion  matches,  8. 
Pergamus,   king  of,   214. 
Pestle,   98. 
Phillipides,   224. 
Phoenicians,    171,   210. 


Radiators,   25. 

Raft,  1 68. 

REAPER,  history  of,  85-96. 

Richaud,  22. 

Reed  (of  loom),  115. 

Reed    (for  writing),  213. 

Reel    (for  reaper),  90. 

Renaissance,  139. 

Robert  F.  Stockton,  186. 

Roller-mill   (for  flour),  107. 

Romans    (ancient),    18,    57,    86, 

134,  152,  171,  196,  215,  225. 
Rudder,   169,  170,  174. 
Rumsey,  James,   180. 


INDEX 


247 


s 


Safety-match,    12. 

Safety-valve,  61. 

Sail,  168. 

St.  Paul's   (cathedral),  139. 

St.  Peter's   (cathedral),  139. 

Screw-propeller,    184. 

Scythe,  86. 

Scythe  cradle,  88. 

Self-raking   reaper,   93. 

Self-binding  reaper,  94. 

Seward,  W.  H.  (quoted),  83. 

Share   (of  plow),  75. 

"  Shay,     wonderful     one    hoss," 

153- 

Shed    (of  cloth),  113. 
Shuttle,    115,   116. 
Shuttle-race,  118. 
Sickle,  85. 
Sledge,  147. 
Smelting,  42. 
Smoke,  35. 

Somerset,  Edward,  58. 
Spinning  Jenny,   119. 
Spit   (for  cooking),  15. 
Spokes,    151. 
Spring   (of  clock),  199. 
Spring   (of  vehicle),   155. 
Stamps    (postage),  226. 
Steam,  54. 
Steamboat,     development,     177- 

186. 

Steam-carriage,  156. 
STEAM-ENGINE,    history    of,    54- 

72. 

Steam-plow,  84. 
Steam-turbine,  71. 
Steel,  51. 


Stephenson,  George,   159. 
Stevens,  John,  184. 
Stone  Age,   38. 
Stone  dwelling,   127. 
STOVE,  history  of,  13-27. 
Strike-a-Iight,  8. 
Sturgeon,  William,  233. 
Sun  dial,  188. 
Syllable-sounds,  208. 
Symington,  William,  182. 
Syrian  plow,  75. 


Tapers,  33. 

Telegraph,  228-239. 

Telephone,    239-241. 

Tiller,  173. 

Tinder,  7. 

Torch,  29,  31. 

Tradition,  203. 

Travail,   147. 

Trevethick,  Richard,  158,   162. 

Trireme,   172. 

Turbine    (steam),   71. 

Types,   moveable,   220. 


United   States,   80,  91,   106,   178, 
1 80. 


Vail,   Alfred,   235. 
Vedas,    203. 
Vienna   bread,    106. 
Volume,   213. 


24B 


INDEX 


\v 


Walker,  John,  10. 
Warming  pan,  17,  22. 
Warp,    112. 
Watches,  199. 
Water-clock,   191-195. 
Water-mill,  103. 
Watt,  James,  67,  70,  158. 
Weaver-bird,    no. 
Webster,  Daniel,  81. 
Weft,  112. 

Weight-clock,  196-199. 
Wheatstone,  Professor,  239. 
Wheel,     development    of,     147- 
151. 


Wheel-barrow,   148. 

Wicks,   30,   34. 

Wigwams,   123. 

Wireless  telegraph,  241. 

Wireless   telephone,   241. 

Wood,  Jethro,  82. 

Worcester,    Marquis   of,    58,   78, 

230. 
Wrought   iron,  43. 


Yarn  beam,  no. 


Zuni  Indians,  125. 


T 
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